User Reviews

Off Limits (AKA: Saigon) is the missing Vietnam film, a film I feel not many have actually seen since I never see it mentioned on the message boards out there in net land. While I have certainly never heard it spoken about when talk of Vietnam films crops up. The film is in essence a who done it police drama, two cops on the streets of Saigon during the war are searching for a high ranking officer who is, erm, offing prostitutes.

It is the backdrop of the war that gives the film added substance and lifts it way above average, because we see not only the problems a murder investigation brings, but also the horror of war getting in the way as well. Some damn fine and tidy performances flesh out the characters, with both Gregory Hines & Willem Dafoe as our two stoic and battle weary coppers engaging us from the off, whilst the supporting cast of Fred Ward, Keith David (look out for his dance man!) & Scott Glenn are interestingly watchable; the latter of which who leaves the lasting impression with what has to be the best 5 minutes work he ever did during a brilliant interrogation sequence during a mid-air flight.

It's gritty and interesting and deserves to be better known and sought out. It doesn't pull up any trees as regards formula, and it certainly isn't one you will want to go back to time and time again for thrills and spills, but it hits the spot and as the mystery and stifling heat of Vietnam pervades the mood, you will remember watching it long after the credits have rolled. 7/10

Off limits became something of a quasi-cult film for me. I was in Vietnam with the Marines north and south of Danang in 1968 and once fantasized about hitching a ride down Highway 1 to see Saigon, no small feat as it is something like 580 road miles. But the highway was full of vehicles during the day and you could always catch a ride. I never did get Saigon during the war, but finally did with a group of war vets in 1994. One of my favorite quips in the movie is when Dafoe turns around and finds some South Viet QCs (MPs) coming toward him and says, "We've got mice." That's what we GIs called Viets wearing helmets with QC (Quan Canh) on them. I am now spending several months in Saigon on sort of a temporary assignment, i.e., staying with the in-laws of my Viet wife on a winter break. I would like to see Off Limits again just to critique the city backdrop it used and how realistic it was. I thought this movie could have become a TV mini series but realize it would have been more expensive than China Beach in coming up with SE Asian sets to shoot on. I give it a 7, perhaps too high of a rating, as it goes good on a rainy Saturday afternoon over drinks with friends, especially if they happen to be Vietnam vets.

In Saigon, during the war, Buck McGriff (Willem Dafoe) and Albaby Perkins (Gregory Hines) are U.S. Military Policemen trying to do law enforcement in a chaotic city. When a prostitute is executed on bed, they investigate and they find a witness – the G.I. Maurice (Keith David) that is scared since the killer is an American officer. However Maurice is murdered and soon they find that there are six other prostitutes that have been murdered but their cases have vanished from the files.

They meet the former investigator that gives a copy of his findings and they have five colonels as prime suspects that might be the serial- killer, but their friend Sergeant Dix (Fred Ward) warns that only three of them were in Saigon in the night of the last murder. McGriff finds that Sister Nicole (Amanda Pays) has a witness hidden in the jungle with the Vietcong and he tries to convince her to let them meet her to find who the serial-killer is.

"Off Limits" is a good movie with great cast and a storyline similar to "The Night of the Generals", i.e., a high ranking officer is killing prostitutes during the war. However, the movies are absolutely different and also in common the manhunt of the serial-killer in time of war. This movie is also a great chance to see the lovely Amanda Pays that has disappeared from the screens. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Saigon - Império da Violência" ("Saigon – Empire of Violence")

During the sixties,Anataole Litvak made "the night of the generals".A nazi officer was on a prostitutes murder's trail in Varsaw,Poland:and it seemed that the culprit was a general (check the title).That script was absurd -in Varsaw,during WW2,there was worse,to say the least!-and dubious taste.

So back in Saigon,during the Vietnam war.Two cops are on a prostitutes ' murder's trail...and it seems that this killer is a general....Well you get the picture.

Well,it's not that bad.It's rather entertaining,thanks to Dafoe's good performance.A lot of things do not rise above routine:the two cops who ,of course, are very different,the de rigueur swearwords ,and strip tease galore.What's more interesting is the conflict between the American cops and their local colleagues ,although it's much too superficial,as the Dafoe/nun 's relationship is.Unlike Litvak's Polish extravaganza in which we soon know the murderer's name,"off limits' is a whodunit,saving his identity for the last minutes.

Best moment:although over the top,the scene on the plane where two simultaneous questionings take place gives goosepimples.

Willem Dafoe and Gregory Hines play C.I.D. police (Criminal Investigation Detachment) of the U.S. Army. The scene is Saigon, 1968. They are investigating the murders of Vietnamese prostitutes, and the trail leads to several American Officers as suspects. "Off Limits" is surprisingly good, and works on different levels. The acting is very believable, aided by a fine supporting cast which includes, Fred Ward and Scott Glenn. There is a consistently lively soundtrack, and some welcome humor. What you get is a serial killer drama and a buddy cop movie, filmed in a very exotic location. If you are a Willem Dafoe fan, this is a must see. - MERK

If you like mindless violence, then this is your movie.

Think Jack the Ripper in Saigon. Murders of prostitutes and the trail leads to a higher up.

Gregory Hines and Willem Dafoe are plainclothes MPs trying to solve one murder when they find more. They end up working with a nun (Amanda Pays)who knows the dead girls who have been murdered over the past year. There is even a nunsploitation angle as the sexual tension between Dafoe and Pays is always present.

Their efforts are complicated by the fact that the local Vietnamese cop (Kay Tong Lim) doesn't like them.

There are some good supporting players like Fred Ward, David Alan Grier, and Scott Glenn.

The killer is not reveled until the end, but I bet you guessed who it was.

An interesting film with an excellent cast.

Buck McGriff, played by Willem Dafoe and Albaby Perkins, played by Gregory Hines are military police officers in Saigon in 1968. Things get complicated when they start investigating the murders of local prostitutes.

The cast is excellent, especially Scott Glenn who unfortunately has a smaller role that could have been much better and more relevant to the plot. Although, the helicopter interrogation scene where Scott Glenn (Colonel Dexter Armstrong) interrogates captured soldiers while being interrogated by McGriff and Perkins is really tense and interesting and perhaps the best part of the film. So Scott Glenn's role nonetheless contributed greatly to the film.

The direction is good, as is the cinematography. The atmosphere is interesting and tries to capture the atmosphere in Saigon during those years. Amanda Pays plays a nun, a rather interesting role in which she did well.

Some things are done awkwardly and over the top, but the film is still entertaining and worth watching.

The film has its flaws, which it compensates for with its interesting cinematography and great cast.

Off Limits is a sweaty, grimy piece set in Saigon during the Vietnam war, and has little to do with the actual conflict itself. In the filthy whorehouses of the district, someone is viciously murdering prostitutes, sparking an investigation by the U.S. Military. They bring two plainclothes detectives, tough, idealistic, violent Buck Mcgriff (Willem Dafoe) and flippant, goofball Albaby Perkins (Gregory Hines, superb), who hides his cunning intuition behind the sarcasm. They are law enforcement in a land without a soul, let alone law. The chaos and confusion of the war puts a sheen of distraction over their efforts to find and stop this monster. Their commanding officer (Fred Ward) has few answers for them, and they are led on hunches into some sordid realms of investigation, from unruly potential suspects in the core (David Alan Grier, Keith David), and a demented, sadomasochistic Army Colonel with some truly strange ideas of a good time (Scott Glenn, bugfuck crazy). They are lead here and there on a wild goose chase, until it becomes apparent that the answer may be a little closer to home than they thought. Dafoe and Hines hold the whole pile of scummy intrigue together with their well oiled performances, and even when it threatens to go off the rails, their committed work steers it back on track. Its like a buddy cop flick with none of the laughs, set in a hell half a world away where there's no protocol, no backup, and no one speaks English. Enough to make a tense, unnerving thriller in my books.

This movie begins in Saigon right before the Tet Offensive with a young prostitute lying naked on a bed when suddenly the man she just slept with pulls out a gun and shoots her in the head. As it turns out that the only evidence found at the scene points to an American army officer which in turn results in two C.I.D. agents named "Buck McGriff" (Willem Dafoe) and "Albaby Perkins" (Gregory Hines) being sent to investigate. Unfortunately, they soon realize that the person behind these killings is very well connected and anybody who gets too close gets eliminated before they can disclose anything. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this movie started off real well and I especially liked the depiction of the Saigon night life during this particular time. However, the film got more than a little far-fetched about two-thirds of the way in which caused it to lose a great deal of credibility from there on out. Although I still don't consider this film to be bad necessarily, it could have been much better without some of the ridiculous scenarios towards the end and with that in mind I have rated this movie accordingly. Average.

It`s obvious that by 1988 the Vietnam war film had nothing more to say . From the pondering self pity of THE DEER HUNTER to the cruel humour of FULL METAL JACKET the sub genre had burnt itself out in a similar manner as napalm had burnt out the jungles of South East Asia . SAIGON ( As it`s known in Britain ) doesn`t make any pretence at bringing anything new to Hollywood`s love affair to the `Nam and tells us nothing we didn`t already know:

War is hell - Check

The South Vietnamese regime wasn`t worth the life of one GI - Check

All US colonels are crazy - Check

SAIGON doesn`t really feel more than a gimmick film, the gimmick being that it`s a murder mystery set during the war in Vietnam . I should also point that the murder plot is very unconvincing , especially so in the last ten minutes where the murderer is revealed and it becomes a race against time to save his victim .

If you want to see either Willam Defoe or Scott Glenn in a movie masterpiece rent PLATOON or APOCALYPSE NOW instead

Off Limits is a tense and even paced thriller. It concerns two cops is Viet Nam investigating a murder of a prostitute and the first suspect is a high ranking Army Officer. The film contains shock after shock, with plenty of plot twists. The dialogue is snappy and the interplay between Dafoe and Hines is excellent. The supporting actors are convincing as well. Kudos to Keith David who plays a paranoid witness to the murder. And one may not soon forget Scott Glenns portrayal as a crazed Officer. The scene in the helicopter is as tense and thrilling as a scene can get. The film is not a preachy summary of the war in Viet Nam but rather just a good mystery and slam bang action. The ending comes around too fast but you have to check it out for yourself. I suggest this film for a rainy Sunday afternoon if you are looking for a good action flick.

From early on in this film, you got the feeling that this was destined to fall into the love story between Willem Dafoe and the cute nun.

Colourful indeed!

Dafoe and his partner Gregory Hinds are investigating murders of prostitutes in Saigon, who have all been killed by an American GI. It's their job to find which one.

Competently scripted, reasonably directed and acted, this is another in the line of harmless enough Vietnam films of the time, that are neither particularly good nor particularly bad.

I watched this film on Sky movies the other night, it is called Saigon here in the UK. It is of course set in Saigon and I think if you took this cop thriller and set it in LA or New York it would just be another average cop film. What makes it different is the setting and the backdrop of the Vietnam conflict. I must admit though I guessed the murderers identity about halfway through the film. It was also refreshing for the guy not to get the girl as it were! A decent if a quite forgotten film.

Profanity runs very high in this engrossing army thriller of unrealistic, over the top violence (not frequent though) impressive, out there dialogue, and partial sleaze thrown in, of course that discredits it a little. It also has good acting from our leads, and everyone else too. The much missed and loved Hines, proves here, he was much an underrated acting talent. Scott Glenn who makes a guest appearance is short and sweetly effective as a kinky and suicidal colonel. We have a whack job, who's doing prostitutes who have had babies, all fathered by army servicemen. The killer points towards a high ranking army official, that I didn't pick, though I know a few people who have, like the answer was staring them, straight in the face. Though I was eighteen, when I saw it, and I was less smarter, probably today I'd be much quicker off the bad. The photography is fantastic, truly capturing the period, you really believe it's 1968, this film released twenty years later. We even have old radio excerpts as well. But the problem with Saigon, is it does give too much away, in it's intelligent but self conscious script. We have great action, well shot, some of it quite thrilling, and scary. Fred Ward is totally unlike Fred Ward here, as a colonel who has his own demons. It's the best stuff I've ever seen from this guy. Explosions and violence, run amok, in Saigon, this city of madness, where several people, witnesses, who can finger this guy are eliminated, while attempts are made on the relentless duo, Dafoe and Hines, who won't stop until they get their man. Model, Pays is great as a sympathetic nun, who proves she can do other things, besides the latter. The opening for me, is one of a few cool openings in movies, it had a dangerous and riveting aura, right from the start. I still recommend this flick to people, especially being a Dafoe fan, like me.

Pretty decent offering featuring a couple of G.I. MP's who try to solve a string of brutal prostitute murders. After a while it was plain who the killer was. One part that just didn't play was the car bombing: I don't think yelling "get down" would save anybody in this case.

When your protagonists are...

*Dead. From. The. Neck. Up.*

...stupid, well, that's when you know that you made a bad movie. For example: The two protagonists are deeply racist! And (Defoe and Hines) they're the good guys...

Another ridiculous thing about this film is that it is never explained who sent the assassins in this film, the guys on motorcycles! And if the assassins at the climax had not of tried to kill the two protagonists, then, the main bad guy likely would have gotten away with it... So, if the assassins were working for the main bad guy, to kill the protagonists, well, that backfired!

This movie is virtually unknown/has been pretty much completely forgotten about and all that that means is that this movie has never honestly received the criticism that it deserves.

Never heard about "Off Limits" before when it aired on late Friday night television here in my country, but everything about it instantly appealed to me big time. There's the obscurity status for starters (I'm particularly intrigued by films I never heard about before), the prominent cast (Willem Dafoe, Gregory Hines, Fred Ward, Keith David, Scott Glenn), the period of release (late 80's) and - most of all - the concept in its entirety. As you can derive from the alternate title "Saigon", the film is set in Vietnam during the infamous war, but it's definitely not just another epic illustrating the horrible battles in the jungle or the traumatizing impact on its soldiers. "Off Limits" is first and foremost a genuine cop thriller, set in a hellish environment torn apart through warfare, and an effectively disturbing portrait of the horrible issues caused by American soldiers outside of the battlefields. McGriff and Perkins have the worst jobs in the world, since they're employed as army police officers in Saigon and responsible to investigate the crimes committed by American soldiers. One day they're assigned to investigate the murder of a Vietnamese prostitute who had a child with an American soldier. They quickly discover this isn't the first gruesome crime of its kind, as no less than seven similar cases were reported during the past year and they're clearly the work of a serial killer with a strict modus operandi. The devoted and headstrong duo also discovers that the previous officer prematurely quit his investigation even though he came fairly close to capturing the killer, undoubtedly because several high ranked officers got involved and his own life became endangered. McGriff and Perkins, however, are determined to stop to sadist killer, especially when they receive help from a beautiful and street-wise young novice. "Off Limits" is a fast-paced, suspense and frequently very violent thriller with a screenplay that is full of misleading twists, false leads and red herrings, like a legitimate and compelling whodunit thriller ought to be. Some sequences are even downright fantastic, for instance the helicopter-interrogation (Scott Glenn is sublime) or the nail-biting scene where the copper duo is surrounded by a mob of furious and vengeful Vietnamese people. Christopher Crowe's direction is tight and consequently surefooted – which is quite remarkable for a debut feature – and his own script is *almost* completely devoid of dreadful clichés and irritating stereotypes. I do emphasize the word 'almost' because a Vietnam movie without mad-raving American officers and/or foul-mouthed Vietnamese prostitutes is practically unthinkable. Dafoe and Hines provide some terrific on screen chemistry, but they certainly aren't your typical witty interracial buddies like Eddie Murphy & Nick Nolte in "48 Hours" or Mel Gibson & Danny Glover in "Lethal Weapon". They tease and provoke each other all the time, but the atmosphere of the film and the nature of the events are simply to austere to mix with comedy. The film is beautifully shot and has a marvelous soundtrack filled with timeless contemporary songs from James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Arthur Resnick. "Off Limits" is a terrific and incomprehensibly overlooked film. If you have the opportunity to watch it, please do so without hesitation.

Gregory Hines and Willem Dafoe make an excellent team in this unusual murder mystery set in Vietnam.Actual filming overseas add to the realism.Anyone ever serving in the Pacific can attest to that.The soundtrack was great, using music not usually heard in most of the Vietnam movies.Supporting actors performances were also very good ( Fred ward, Amanda Pays ).I have collected all the Vietnam movies and rate this one of the best.

This film has some great characters and an excellent soundtrack. The scenes starring Keith David as Maurice as pure class. Such a shame his character does not play a more prominent role.

Dafoe is brilliant as always, and Scot Glenn is also in top form. If you like fine acting and unusual, fresh, original and funny characters then you could do a lot worse than see this.