THE STORY: If every movie that took place in the American south were true, that means the south is full of nincompoops. Thats a pretty broad stereotype, I know it can't possibly be true, (Well, I HOPE it can't be true) and still the dumbest guy I ever met on active duty was from Mississippi. (and this guy was dumb....really dumb. It was amazing how dumb he was.) This movie is a classic example. I saw it years ago on HBO, and recently rented it.

A group of soldiers from the Louisiana National Guard cause a lot of their own problems during their little weekend "play army" time. In order to cross a river in the swamp they steal a few canoes belonging to a group of Cajuns. One of the soldiers, a jerk named Stuckey, fires at the Cajuns when they arrive at the bank of the river to see the guardsmen rowing away. Stuckey meant it as a joke, since his rifle has only blanks, but the Cajuns don't know that.  (duh) One of them fires back, killing Poole, the platoon sergeant. From there things get progressively worse for the soldiers since not one of them, besides the two main characters, Hardin and Spencer, have any [unwrite]ing common sense. Hardin is the "new" guy, and he doesn't have too much regard for the yokels in this unit. Spencer, on the other hand seems to get along with the others, but he's a little smarter than the rest of them.

Anyway, with the platoon sergeant dead, Sergeant Casper takes command. Casper has the distinction of being a real wannabe. He wants to be a real "Sergeant Rock" kinda guy, but he has less command ability than a piece of wet spaghetti. You can see that he really takes this Army stuff seriously...so seriously he comes off looking like a real dip[unwrite]. He also has the inability to make a good decision. For no other reason than stupidity he authorizes the soldiers to go after the first Cajun they see, a one-armed trapper. So on top of stealing civilian property, threatening civilians with their weapons and getting Poole killed these idiots capture a one-armed man, beat him up and blow up his cabin! The whole time I was watching these events unfold I kept thinking, "This is crazy! Don't these guys know how much trouble they're in for doing this crap?" and "Casper has absolutely no balls. If a squad under my command began acting like this I'd do something to stop it.". I'm not saying I know what I would do (though it might have involved busting a cap in someone) but Casper doesn't do anything sensible to bring a semblance of control into play.

Suffice it to say Casper makes all of the wrong moves. Any decision he makes is the complete opposite one that you or I and every other sane person would make. The Cajun inhabitants of the swamps begin a guerilla war with the soldiers and one by one the guardsmen start dying. I was rooting for the Cajuns. After all, they didn't do anything wrong and these morons attacked them.

Don't take this the wrong way...I like this movie. The only disconcerting thought I had about it was "what if the Louisiana Guard does have cretins like this in it?" Now that my droogies is real horror! The only good thing about it is if they start that whole "The South will rise again" bull[unwrite] they'll be easy to beat.

Powers Booth was Hardin....he also had pretty much the best lines in the movie. Brion James was the one armed trapper. Man, that guy got around.

Best Lines: "They're not okay...they're just Louisiana versions of the same dumb rednecks I've been around my whole life."- Hardin lets his feelings about his new unit be known.

"Oh hell yes, all we have to do is swim a couple of hundred yards and find 'em back in that forest. Then after we do that we can capture 'em and shoot 'em with our blanks."- Hardin's witty response to the idea that they go look for the Cajuns that shot Sergeant Poole.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?:

1.) I'm not going to harp on the uniforms in this movie...it was made in the early eighties and any mistakes on them wouldn't matter too much anyway...but I do have to ask why the soldiers don't have blank adapters on the weapons? I'm certain only someone who has actually been in the military will know what I mean, but If you're firing blanks you still put a blank adapter...a kind of plug...on the barrel to make sure there's no accidents.

2.) Is SGT Casper out of his friggin' mind? After Poole gets killed he says "We have to continue with our mission!" What mission? Its a national guard training exercise and ITS OVER! It was over the second Poole got killed! The platoon sergeant just got his head blowed off real good because some stupid shmuck thought it was funny to shoot at civilians with blanks. I'll tell you what the mission is now....get back to HQ, court martial the idiot that started this and call it a day.

3.) So, these morons bury Poole, Reese and Cribbs and mark the graves by leaving their M16's and helmets on them? In the middle of the swamp where any joe can find them? You can't just leave a fully functional M16 lying around! (Or the helmet, either....I lost a canteen once in the woods and they made me pay for it!)

4.) I simply cannot believe it! Being the only two survivors, Hardin and Spencer get a ride with a Cajun guy to a Cajun village. The man's wife offers to show them a place to wash up and they leave their M16's in the truck! Are they mad?! After what they just went through? Yeah, they don't have any ammo, but that's besides the point. NEVER LEAVE YOUR WEAPON UNATTENDED! You learn that in Boot Camp.

NUDITY AND SEX:  none

HUH?:  Most of these guys look pretty old to be privates. Is recruitment a problem for the Louisiana National Guard? I can see how it could be. These men are the biggest bunch of boobs I've ever seen. There's no way I'd want to be around any of them in civilian life, let alone in the Guard with them.

Casper and the men decide to take the Cajun prisoner back with them to be tried. Right. I'd like to know where Casper thinks he's getting the authority to tie up a civilian and forcibly take him to their Headquarters. I'd pay real money to be in the orderly room while he tries to explain this to the commander. You just can't go around abducting civilians! To make it even more bizarre for Casper (or any of the others for that matter) to do this they have absolutely NO PROOF that this Cajun was the one to shoot Poole. So really, Sergeant Casper plans to present this man to the commander on the charges that he may have shot Poole, but there's no proof whatsoever. Oh, and then he can explain how the squad stole the Cajun's boats, blew up his house and generally did everything in their power to get everyone killed.

In the Cajun village Spencer thinks they should relax and stay awhile. Of course that's just the place where the Cajuns that want them dead are. Why does he all of a sudden think its okay to have a beer and relax when they're still in danger?

Did any of these bozos go through any training whatsoever? They get hopelessly lost in the swamp, and they lost the map, compass and radio. Only one compass? Are you kidding me? Each and every one of them should have had at least a compass! What if one of them got separated and had to navigate his own way out of the swamp? And did Casper ever learn anything about land navigation? He gets in an argument with Spencer about the direction they're going. Casper insists they're going north, but Spencer points out that they're walking into the sun. I don't need a compass to tell me that the sun doesn't set in the [unwrite]ing North!  That's just insane. My 10 year old nephew knows better than that.

THE FINAL JUDGMENT: This isn't a bad movie. If you get a chance to see it, you should. If anything, the sheer amount of stupidity the guardsmen have will be amusing. The lack of brains must be with the Louisiana guard though, 'cuz I served in my home states National Guard and not one of the people there were this stupid.