This is How Movies Should Be Made

Some things I liked some I did not.

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Set in the jungles of 'Nam during the war, Hell's Heroes tells the tale of Sgt. Darkin (O'Keeffe), a badass soldier whose badassery is constantly hampered by bureaucratic red tape. Naturally, this causes Darkin to become disillusioned with the war. When Senator Morris (Connors) comes to visit the troops on some sort of a press junket, Darkin expresses his dissatisfaction with life and the TV cameras and radio microphones eagerly pick it up. When Senator Morris and the soldiers he's with are ambushed by some sneaky Viet Cong bad guys, Darkin is made the scapegoat even though he had nothing to do with it and was merely expressing his opinion. During his period of punishment, he meets up with other rebellious soldiers such as Feather (Fred), Trash (Green), and Bronx (Gori). Now a team with nothing to lose, will the men fight their way out of Vietnam when there are traps and gunfire everywhere? You just may find out... Hell's Heroes is yet another mediocre jungle slog that even Miles O'Keeffe, Fred Williamson, and Chuck Connors could not enliven. That should tell you how dreary it can be. Granted, fan favorites Fred and Connors don't get a lot of time to shine here. That's one of the problems. The major issues are, as we've seen time and time again, a lack of lighting, and the fact that there's no one central villain. You'd think those would be no-brainer inclusions to an exploding-hutter like this, but no. The lights are off for about 60 percent of this movie's running time and truly no one is home. Just some mindless machine gun shooting, helicopters flying around (none explode), and huts exploding - not to mention O'Keeffe doing his Clint Eastwood impression again - is not really enough to get this plodding mush off the ground. Having more Chuck Connors would have been an improvement, but it must be said that his exit is grand, as is befitting the great man. It is highly appropriate that O'Keeffe's character is named Darkin - we're certainly in the dark for the majority of the film. It's almost like they were thumbing their noses at us, the loyal audience. If that's the case, that's not cool, man. When a movie is so dark that the only light sources are muzzle flashes or explosions, that's not good. It all adds up to an Italian-made jungle slog that we really wanted to like, but the lack of lighting and too-brief appearances of the fan favorites made that difficult...actually, impossible. This same year, 1987, director Stelvio Massi again teamed up with Fred Williamson for the more entertaining Black Cobra. Perhaps he wanted to make amends for Hell's Heroes and use Fred in a more workable context. The naming of the incidental characters Bronx and Trash will immediately remind genre fans of Mark Gregory and 1990: The Bronx Warriors (1982) and Escape from the Bronx (1983), where he, of course, played Trash. Is this something we were supposed to pick up on? Because if so, then the character name of Darkin does indeed seem more like a nod to the fact that only the most minimal lights were used and nothing is seeable during the night scenes - and they knew it. Stelvio Massi is also known for his spate of Poliziotteschi movies in the 70's, so he knows how to make fast-paced action. Something must have gone awry in the jungle this time...a bungle, to paraphrase Jethro Tull. In the end, Hell's Heroes is dull and not indicative of the talents of those involved. There's a reason it was included with the 4-movie set "Inglorious Bastards 2 Hell Heroes 4 Inglorious Film Collection", the title of which we've chastised before for being almost incomprehensible, and not released as a standalone disc. It's not worth that treatment, and only die-hard fans of this type of movie are encouraged to seek it out.

This movie makes "Platoon" look like a troop full of Boy Scouts, and makes "Full Metal Jacket" look like a knitted cardigan. "Inglorious Bastards 2: Hell's Heroes" makes the first Inglorious Bastards look totally irrelevant! Featuring: Miles O'Keefe of Ator fame; Fred Williamson, and actual live combat footage! Witness the story of Sgt. Darkin as he battles red-tape and the Viet Cong. When Senator Morris takes a tour of Vietnam on a boat, he asks Sgt. Darkin his opinion on the war; he tells the Senator right out his feelings of disillusionment, meanwhile the boat banks at a village of the most Hispanic-looking-Vietnamese-people-ever. The villagers greet the Senator and his guards with flag-waving, but they quickly throw their flags down and hold up machine guns. As Sgt. Darkin attempts to open fire, an explosion sends him flying into the ocean. After 6 hours, he's washed ashore and reports to his commanding officer, who sends him to the brig for treason and going AWOL. In the brig Darkin makes friends with the nastiest cut-throats known to men, among them Feather played by Fred Williamson. Just what obstacles will these friendships endure? Find out! Veterans say the camera-work in this film looked just like what they saw in Vietnam: everything was so damned obfuscated around them that they couldn't see their fellow soldiers next to them!You heard it here, go see "Inglorious Bastards 2: Hell's Heroes" today!

Billed in a recent DVD release as Inglorious Bastards 2, a sequel to the film that Quentin Tarantino used as the inspiration for his own film, this film is actually a Viet Nam set film about soldier played by Miles O'Keefe who is trying to fight the good fight but is hamstrung by all his men being new recruits and the general over him not believing that the enemy is preparing something big. When a senator (played by Chuck Connors) is killed in an ambush, O'Keefe is sent to the stockade as a scapegoat because he had exchanged angry words with the senator prior to the attack. In the stockade he meets a number of other soldiers including Fred Williamson. The band take it on the lamb when the building is damaged in the fighting and they head into the jungle and hopefully freedom. Okay action film suffers from too much talk and not enough action. When the action comes its pretty good, but until it happens it's a tad too talky. Its not uninteresting, its just not as action packed as I would have liked, certainly not a film that is suppose to be a sequel to Inglorious Bastards. Its worth a look, more so since this is available as part of a multi-film DVD set.