Starring: Matt McCoy, Dartanyan Edmonds, Corbin Bernsen, Melissa Braselle

Directed by: Jim Wynorski  Written by: Steve Latshaw

The Story: It would be stupid to expect a straight to video movie like this one to be as good as "Saving Private Ryan" or "Heartbreak Ridge". I knew that when I picked it up. All I really expected was an action movie. I wanted to see the characters shooting up bad guys, talking tough and maybe the usual "heroes in a bar fighting dumbasses" scene. Perhaps some obligatory female nudity thrown in for good measure. Well, I'm here to tell you, my droogies, that you will get none of that in this sorry excuse for a movie. As a matter of fact this is probably the worst movie I've seen all year. This movie is so bad in so many ways that I honestly couldn't believe my eyes. Its like when you eat one of those circus peanut candy things...you think to yourself "Holy Sh*t! They actually make something that can taste so vile!?".

I'll admit that I'm not completely knowledgeable on the training and purposes of Army Rangers. But I do know that their mission is to take a piece of real estate and hold it. Rangers are trained to be a lethal and effective fighting force and they're really good at it. But I didn't know they also subbed for Navy SEALS. They do in this movie, 'cuz the first thing they do is something you'd normally see the SEALs doing. Maybe Army Special Forces do this kind of thing too, but I mention the SEALs because I swear the scene showing the rangers jumping into the ocean was cribbed from the movie Navy Seals. If anyone has seen this movie let me know if you agree. (but if you've seen this movie, man, you have my sympathy.)

A ranger unit led by Captain Scott Broughten arrives in a war torn middle eastern country with the intention of capturing terrorist leader Hasim Al Hadaad. Its a covert operation since a United Nations Peace Agreements forbids American incursions in this fictional land. (again, wouldn't the SEALs or Special Forces troops be doing this?) Broughten's old friend Captain Vince Shannon is on the mission as a CIA liaison and he tells Broughten before they jump that he has a bad feeling. His intelligence reports say that someone has forewarned Hadaad and they're probably going to be ambushed and slaughtered. Gosh, Shannon, don't ya think this would have been important to bring up before the mission started?

Shannon is right. Hadaad and his men know the rangers are coming and have planned accordingly. I wish I could say that the rangers are so damned good that they still manage to complete their mission, but the movie doesn't give us that. Instead the rangers complete their mission because the terrorist troops are imbeciles. As a matter of fact they complete the mission so easily I wondered why they needed Rangers. A bunch of determined Boy Scouts could probably have pulled it off. Shannon gets captured, but not because of sloppy work on the Rangers behalf, but instead he was betrayed by the CIA and the US government. One of the rangers, Lt. Rogoff, was secretly instructed to sabotage the mission and kill Shannon. Rogoff couldn't even get that right, Shannon lived but was delayed in getting to the extraction point and caught by Hadaad's men. Rogoff claims that Shannon was killed to Broughten and the helicopter takes off without him. After they're airborne Broughten receives a radio message from Shannon so he knows his old friend is in enemy hands.

Why was Shannon backstabbed by the US? Well, there's no real reason. At least not a good one. General Smith and some CIA goons planned for the mission to fail so that Hadaad could slaughter the rangers and thus look like a kick ass guy in the region. Why would they want this? Hey, you watch the flick and tell me. I have no idea. I guess the General and his buddies were going to get rich or something. Smith says some bullsh*t about "foreign policy" objectives and all, but it sounds even dumber in the movie than it does here. The answer is never really given and what explanations we do get are half assed and not worth worrying about. While in enemy hands, Hadaad's chief henchman (I think the guy was supposed to be Hadaad's brother, and I don't actually recall his name...I think it was "Amir".) convinces Shannon to side with him and help rescue Hadaad from the Americans. He even offers Shannon five million bucks! The US officials have pegged Shannon as a traitor, claiming that he himself warned Hadaad, so Shannon thinks he has little choice since he can't go back to America.

This is where the movie goes from being just cheesy-bad to dirty-baby-diaper-in -your-face bad. Shannon and a bunch of the terrorists go the United States and hole up in an apartment building. Shannon is supposed to help them locate Hadaad's holding place but he instead decides to get revenge on the people that betrayed him, including Broughten. After killing a few people (Rogoff, the CIA dude, etc), Shannon kidnaps Broughton's wife, Kelly, and almost kills Alex Fenton, another of Broughten's men, and the obligatory jive talkin' black guy on the ranger team. Broughten and Fenton seek answers and help from Senator Corbin Bernsen (I didn't write the senators name down either, but he's played by Corbin Bernsen and isn't really in the movie for more than maybe a total of five minutes) and go after Shannon themselves. Shannon however has a change of heart AFTER he kills General Smith. Before he dies Smith admits that Shannon was set up and now Shannon wants to help stop the terrorists and clear himself of wrongdoing.

The climax of the movie is so irritatingly bad, my jaw hit the floor and kept on going until it reached the basement. Hundreds of Hadaad's men land on the shore like a Middle eastern D-Day invasion. The Army clears the city and has tanks and about a thousand armed soldiers waiting for them. And this footage is stolen directly from the 80's cheese flick Invasion USA!! Using footage from another movie is one thing, but using A HELL OF A LOT of footage from a cheesy Chuck Norris flick is a whole different animal. Especially when its Invasion USA...which was silly itself, is still better than this movie!

Make no mistake, this movie is f*cking awful. Its cheaply made and it shows. Matt McCoy is less convincing as a Ranger captain than Rick Moranis would be playing Patton. The sets are the cheapest things I've seen outside of an Ed Wood movie. The dialogue is painful. And considering the recent trouble in the world with Terrorism, the release of this movie was ill-timed. (That would be different if it was a decent movie, but this movie is just plain bad....no, scratch that....this movie is far worse than plain bad...its eating a dog-doo sandwich bad) I had a really hard time watching this movie and its not just because I'm in the Army. This movie will either make you laugh your ass off with its absurdity or give you a splitting headache, and military service isn't a prerequisite to feel the pain.

Best Lines:  “What do you mean 'what about me?', lissen Agent Kenner, officially we're still on leave so dig this, alright, here's a twenty...so take this and take you and Phil Drummond from "Diff'rent Strokes here and go and have a lap dance on me.” -Fenton mouths off to the CIA. It wasn't funny, but the Phil Drummond thing was at least not as groan inducing as his other wisecracks.

"Set you straight?....Negro, you blew up my f*cking house!” -Fenton to Shannon when the rogue officer tries to explain what's been going on. (Which still makes no sense.)

Are you kidding me?

1.) The so called action packed start of this movie is really badly done. McCoy is so stiff as Broughten I almost fell asleep. (God, and Fenton's "I'm the wisecracking black guy" jokes were excruciating) I especially love the way Broughten stands in the open doorway of the helicopter while dozens of terrorist troops are shooting at him but doesn't get hit, while the expendable guy on the team gets hit and dies in the flight. I guess they didn't think having a medic on board was a good idea. you know how people do that closing the eyes of a dead guy thing in movies? Even that's terrible in this movie! You can tell that the dead guys eyes were ALREADY closed when Fenton "closes" them.

2.) The Code of Conduct for the US Armed forces goes right out of the window for Shannon. The terrorists don't even really torture him and he rolls over fast! They offer him some brandy and five million simoleans and he changes sides lickety-split! Man, someone get Demi Moore. In GI Jane she got the sh*t kicked out of her on a training mission and didn't give into the enemy....Shannon takes a swig of booze and gets ready to burn the flag. Punk.

3.) The movie obviously had a low budget...so I guess they couldn't afford actual uniforms except a few sets of BDU's (Battle Dress Uniform...you know, the camouflaged stuff, for you civilians) and a set of Class A's for General Smith and his assistant. So I won't have too many uniform nitpicks. For the most part the BDU's were okay. They even put an expert infantry patch and an airborne patch on Broughten. But Smith's assistant....man, this really pisses me off. She's sitting there at here desk in the Pentagon of all places, with her jacket open and her hair all over her collar. I'm getting sick and tired of crap like this in cheap movies because then I have to explain why that is so wrong. First of all, if you're going to wear a Class A uniform, you either have the jacket buttoned all the way up, or you don't wear the jacket period. And while females can have long hair it has to be kept above the collar, not hanging down like a freakin' Cover Girl model. Is that so hard? Geezuz, when my wife was in the army she had hair all the way down to her ass....really....yet she kept it pinned up when in uniform. (and my wife was a combat support soldier! CMF 52 D if any of you army guys out there were wondering.) Here's a hint future filmmakers...get a copy of AR 670-1 if you're going to make an army movie. Its not a classified document for Pete's sake!

4.) Shannon goes about killing his former compadres in the stupidest ways possible. When he kills Dell, the evil CIA agent he shoots him with a LAW (Light anti-tank Weapon, kinda like a little bazooka) and when he gets Rogoff he engages in small talk with him in front of the man's girlfriend before shooting him. Then he's even stupid enough to call Broughten and tell him that he's gunning for him but he's off to kill Alex Fenton first. I thought revenge was a dish best served cold. He could have just snuck up on and nonchalantly shot any of these guys with a normal handy dandy pistol and been done with it. For the love of Mike, the terrorist leader Amir gets pissed at Shannon for his antics, fearing that Shannon will jeopardize their mission of freeing Hadaad  yet not five minutes later, we see one of his terrorists blowing up Fenton's house with another LAW! If he was so upset with Shannon's revenge agenda why'd he let his own crony help Shannon in blowing up a house!? He might as well have just called CNN and the White House and told them the address of the hotel they were hiding in.

5.) The sad thing is I know it'll come up again...but dammit, I'm so tired of hearing this line "Rangers are paid to die!". Insert any applicable name instead of Rangers for various other movies. If I had a nickel for every time someone says that in a cheap flick I'd be able to fund my own big budget movie. (not this one, because they only used a nickel for the budget.)

6.) Even the Coast Guard would have reason to hate this movie. Hadaad's men roll up into Atlanta right off of the coast in dozens of landing craft. So this middle eastern terrorist has the ability to land a large invasion force on the American coast without intervention from the Navy or the Coast Guard? Yikes! We've got to worry about than sharks at the beach this summer!

Nudity and Sex: None

Huh?:

I'm not saying that a General can't own a houseboat....but Smith lives on one! Let me tell you a little about Generals....usually they have bodyguards. Especially a Four Star General that works at the Pentagon and has access to tip top secret stuff. Heck, an MP buddy of mine in Germany had to guard the General's wife when she went shopping on post! So why does Smith live in a houseboat by himself?! Smeg! General's usually live in big freakin' houses on post for free!

Laughably some of these Middle Eastern terrorists are clearly just plain old white guys. Cheapass movie.

Broughten introduces Alex Fenton as Sergeant Alex Fenton, but later in the movie Fenton is a First Lieutenant....even Audie Murphy didn't get promoted that fast!

Damned budget cutbacks! No one but Dell is working in CIA HQ allowing Shannon to walk in unopposed carrying a LAW! I guess they couldn't even afford a security guard for the door!

Listen to General Smith's explanation to Shannon about the whole evil plot. If you can in any way make sense of it, let me know because it darn sure sounded goofy as hell to me.

No one is gonna get a cookie for acting in this movie, but without a doubt Shannon is the worst one here....Matt McCoy might not be convincing as an Army Ranger, but this guy....woof!

The half-assed salutes in this movie are bad enough, but wait 'til you see General Smith's office. Having worked at the Pentagon before I can tell you Smith must have been the laughing stock. My office was better than his and I work for a living!

The Final Judgment: There's absolutely no way this movie gets out of The Inferno with its hide intact. No f*ckin' way.

The Infernal Demons give a big thumbs down for this movie and as punishment it will be beaten to a bloody pulp, hourly, every single freaking day for the end of time by the ghosts of the brave soldiers that actually deserve the title of Army Ranger. Instead of a salute, we give this movie the finger.