User Reviews

Commander and his small band of freedom fighters goes on one last mission to stop the remains of the VC and evil Russian Vlasov, who is working with the VC in various nefarious enterprises.

Writer director Ignazio Dolce under the pseudonym Paul D. Robinson along with Larry Jonathan who co-wrote the screenplay delivers a competent wall to wall actioner with plenty of stunts and explosions.

In the first few minutes Sgt. Roger 'Commander' Craig blows up a convoy, destroys a bridge; rescues prisoners and kills twenty soldiers. Commander is indeed very efficient in this glorious Rambo First Blood Part II jungle action ripoff.

Dolce's on location Philippines shoot offers a great backdrop to the death and mayhem throughout. Simon Boswell music with a James Horner vibe is fitting and compliments the on screen Veteran's antics. There's a few poignant moments littered throughout.

Craig Alan is not looking for an Oscar and does his best Rambo, however, David Light steals every scene as Colonel Vlasso. Mike Monty of Zombie 3 appears briefly as Major. Ken Watanabe shows up, he went on to bigger and better films. Company man Colonel played by James Clevenger is notable.

Overall, surprisingly well staged, silly and ultra-violent from beginning to end.

Years after the end of the Vietnam war, American freedom fighter Roger Craig (AKA Commander) continues the battle against the communist Vietcong and their Russian allies, leading raids to free their prisoners.

Just one of countless Rambo rip-offs from the late '80s, this Italian clunker's lead 'actor' Craig Alan helps one appreciate what a great action hero Sylvester Stallone was in his prime. Sly had star power and enormous screen presence, making musclebound Vietnam vet John Rambo a true cinematic icon; in contrast, the uncharismatic Alan is relatively wimpy, and looks utterly gormless throughout this predictable piece of Spaghetti action trash in which his supposedly enraged character, at best, looks mildly agitated.

Where the film does deliver is with the sheer quantity of pyrotechnics and bloody shootouts, with lots of huge explosions and numerous bad guys blown away by our hero, but pedestrian direction from Ignazio Dolce ensures that, despite laying waste to entire villages in an orgy of gunfire, flame and smoke, there is very little in the way of genuine excitement to be had, the whole thing about as banal as this type of thing can get.

Comically blank and uncharismatic actor Craig Alan leads a mercenary squad in Southeast Asia battling communists in this otherwise humorless clone equal parts RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II, MISSING IN ACTION, and most importantly COMMANDO. Quite awkwardly, his character goes through most of the film simply referred to as "Commander" which doesn't even really make sense until you take into account the film's constant attempt to dupe audiences into thinking this was really an original American mainstream crowd-pleaser like the Schwarzenegger movie was. Just look at the Anglicized credits for further evidence (and frustratingly so at that as I have no idea who the very gifted director of photography on this film really was).

What these Italian and Filipino action movies fail to understand is that the unrealistic nature in the American movies was played off largely for the darkly comedic or cathartic factor, whereas these ripoffs are totally straight-faced and one-dimensional in execution. Combined with the much lower production values, bad acting, and banal dialog, this all sling-shots these films so far in the other direction that it's really hard to look at them seriously as anything more than another pathetic cash-in. Unlike its predecessors, COMMANDER comes off as so addle-brained and juvenile yet violent and mean-spirited so as to create a bizarre viewing experience, entertaining in different ways altogether.

Ignazio Dolce made several careers in the Italian film industry, first as an actor and then later largely as an assistant director. Like a few of his peers, he got his chance to direct in the late 80's with a series of low budget Vietnam-set actioners shot in the Philippines, mainly starring American expatriates and slumming B-vets like Richard Hatch and James Mitchum. Of all of those films this one easily has the most effort and energy put into it and therefore it's the most fun of the bunch, yet at the same time the strikingly least-intelligent.

Much like the B-movie REVENGE OF THE WILD BUNCH, this film puts about 90% of its resources into the action scenes (particularly the climactic celebration of violence near the end) and barely anything into the rest of the movie. I've seen this movie a few times and am still not entirely sure why the hero allows himself to get captured and tortured other than to just make the movie longer. While the dialog and acting are quite terrible, it's undeniable that COMMANDER's action scenes must be seen to be believed! In what must have been an effort to outdo the slam-bang finale COMMANDO, there's more exploding huts, bloody squibs, dangerous stunts, dummies on fire, and impressive pyrotechnics involved than most of the actual wars which ripped through Southeast Asia during the 70's and 80's.

Much of the violence is lovingly captured and edited with a certain energy absent from most others in the Italian/Filippino jungle action/war genre, matched only perhaps by Ferdinando Baldi's WARBUS and some of Antonio Margheriti's slightly more original efforts such as THE LAST HUNTER, THE COMMANDER (not to be mistaken with this film even though they were done the same year), and COMMANDO LEOPARD. Simon Boswell provides the simple synth score which bounces back and forth from goofy Nintendo game to being genuinely moving and exciting.

So is this rare little movie worth hunting down? If you're even reading this review you've likely made up your mind on the merits of such a film long before viewing it. This movie has a lot of bad and a lot of good - it's definitely best for those not expecting too much or with a hunger for cinematic violence and easy access to a Fast-Forward button. One point just cannot be argued, and that is that there are few movies out there with this nearly pornographic level of violent and explosive Action (capitalized for a reason), and the bulk of it truly is Action well-done. I'm sad that the rest of the films on the cast and crew's resume just doesn't quite measure up.