Soldier Boyz (1995)

How sad is this?

best movie i've ever seen.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

The American Ninja, Michael Dudikoff, is back, although not as a ninja in this weak made-for-TV action film. Instead, he plays an ex-Marine hired by a wealthy businessman to rescue his kidnapped daughter from Vietnamese bandits. Vietnam films were pretty played out by the time this films was made, so I'm not quite sure why this was a story that needed to be told, especially since essentially same story was told much better in the 1983 John Milius produced "Uncommon Valor" (which incidentally Dudikoff had a brief non-speaking role). Dudikoff assembles his own Dirty Dozen out of a bunch of criminals and reprobates to carry out their predictable and dull mission. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, an actor too good for this tripe, does as much as he can with his ridiculous villain role as the bandit leader. Overall, this is a pretty low rent Vietnam themed action film that's about 10 years too late.

What we have here is yet another version of the formula that became popular with the making of "The Dirty Dozen" (though we have fewer soldiers in this movie, probably due to the low budget.) It could have been an entertaining version of the formula, but "Solider Boyz" utterly fails. To begin with, the setup is ludicrous - would a millionaire whose daughter was kidnapped allow the lead soldier he hires to have a bunch of TEENAGERS who have almost no combat experience? (Why not hire professional mercenaries?) And there are other silly things like the fact the teenagers only get about ONE DAY of training! Plus, there are plenty of clichés, such as when one solider steps on a land mine and needs to be saved from it exploding.The movie might have been made tolerable with some good action sequences, but the action sequences in this movie are horrible. All they are basically is shots of people firing guns towards the camera, over and over. It looks lazy and cheap, and so is much of the rest of the movie. The jungle locations look skimpy, and some scenes seem to be hastily shot, like when the millionaire's daughter is captured. As you can see, "Soldier Boyz" has problems going far beyond bad spelling.

I have trouble even knowing where to start. Okay here's a first go at it: WHAT THE F#CK!?Let me give you a summary of the concept of this movie: Punks, Vietnam... Vietnam bad, punks worse... Who win? I am about sure that was what the scenario-writer wrote down when he made up this movie, but then again he must've either been 11 or mildly-retarded.NOW, For the fantastic summary of stuff that makes this movie completely non-sense:A. Everyone seems to fire assault-rifles from the hip, Here's a tip: DON'T, you won't hit a squirrel even if it was attached to the barrel of your gun. B. Many fire assault-rifles using one arm, trust me... that will strain, break or ripture stuff in reality after a while.C.They fire a pistol holding the thing tilted to the side, you won't hit an elephant from a meter's distance doing that. D. The rebel Vietnamese fight for the purpose of 'No Trading With Tha Baddie U.S. of A.' but somehow they acquired U.S. made Hummers-trucks and Huey helicopters, Santa must've been sweet to them!! E. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, in this movie pulls a face when shooting as if someone said: "Here's a piece of concrete, eat it and then poop it out within now and 10 minutes or I will kill you with a fork." Can you imagine that look? Good... thats how they look. F. When one of the 'Operatives' is fleeing over a piece of grassland, he gets shot at by about 15 Vietnamese. He gets hit and during this firefight, the bullets seem to make him lose at LEAST 10 liters of blood. ...funny how we used to learn that a human has only so little amount of blood in its body. G. Why the hell are these American-criminals carrying AK-47's!? H. Since when do criminals make good soldiers? I. Since when do criminals turn good for no particular reason? J. Since when do criminals all look 'good'? Okay, I bet I've demotivated you to watch this movie, thats good! When should you watch this movie? You want to laugh, you want to be agitated, you're stoned. This must've been a made for TV-movie, right? Because everything about this movie is cheap and made without any motivation of making it work. Everything, from beginning to the end, is predictable. This movie is one hell of an insult to any Vietnam-veteran as well as any soldier in the world. Cheers for comparing the average soldier's-skill to that of an untrained criminal, they will appreciate it.The only thing I liked about this movie? This girl named Vasquez or something... why? She made me think of the girl that I love.

As much as I love a good mindless action flick, and as much as I love Michael Dudikoff in those flicks, this one just pushes too far. The acting is horrible, the characters cliched stereotypes, the plot nonsensical, and the action scenes are boring. Dudikoff must really need money bad to do tripe like this. It's movies like this and "The Shooter" that make "American Ninja" look like "The Godfather." Avoid at all costs.