While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The Last Hunter (1980) *** (out of 4)Set during the Vietnam War, Captain Morris (David Warbeck) agrees to go on a secret mission behind enemy lines where he meets up with some other soldiers and a photographer (Tisa Farrow). The group heads deep into the jungle where they face the enemy as well as some of their own who are just as bad as the Vietnamese.Antonio Margheriti's THE LAST HUNTER is an entertaining rip-off of countless American Vietnam movies that were being pumped out by Hollywood. This one borrows from several of them but it seems the biggest influence on this film was THE DEER HUNTER. If you're a fan of Italian cinema then you'll certainly want to check this one out as there's plenty of wild, over-the-top action as well as plenty of sleaze, which is exactly what you'd expect from a film like this.As you should expect, Margheriti does a very good job with the material as I'm sure they were working on a very small budget yet the film looks very professional and features some great action sequences. The highlight of the film is an insane shoot out in an American compound as the soldiers get a bit too relaxed and come under attack. This sequence features a lot of shooting, explosions and of course blood. Speaking of blood, if you like gore then you'll get plenty of that here with some rather insane moments of violence including an eye wound that would make Lucio Fulci proud.The film also benefits from a nice cast to help keep you entertained. Warbeck is as fun as you'd expect him to be as he does a very good job in the lead role. He's such a fun actor that he can hold your attention throughout the running time. Farrow does a surprising nude scene here and she too is fun to watch. Obviously the two of them would appear in separate films by Fulci so it was fun getting to see them here. Former football star Tony King is also a lot of fun here as is Bobby Rhodes and John Steiner.THE LAST HUNTER isn't a film that's meant to be taken serious. I'd argue that its ending is the weakest thing about the picture but if you're a fan of action, gore and Italian craziness then it's certainly worth watching.

This war film is included on this website is cheesy, Italian, and there's a plentiful amount of gore on offer. Don't expect anything original to be on offer here, as parts are copied from APOCALYPSE NOW and THE DEER HUNTER, but if you are looking for a juicy slice of Italian exploitation then you've come to the right place. I thought that only horror films were gory, but this war film has enough blood and guts to satisfy even the most hardened viewer. Made in the wake of numerous Italian gut churners such as ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS, you can hardly expect it to be anything else and you won't be disappointed. However apart from the gore there are some fun action sequences, the best being where Warbeck lets loose with a flamethrower, an attack on a boat or a scene where a man tries to get a coconut while bullets fly around him.David Warbeck is the all-round hero in this film. Obviously not the man you immediately think of when it comes to war (let's face it, he was no Sylvestor Stallone), Warbeck acquits himself in the role well, and his gruff officer is both masculine and charismatic. He's one of those guys who you just know will survive until the final credits. Along with battle-scarred Warbeck is Tisa Farrow as the obligatory love interest. Farrow looks a lot different here and while she's not much of an actress - bless her - she's still fun to watch in an enjoyably bad way. Two tough black guys provide the muscle, one of them being Bobby Rhodes (DEMONS), who once again is a macho guy who is killed quickly and violently, much like in all his films. The other black guy has his leg shot off (shown in explicit detail) and is burnt alive while going crazy. I guess it's pretty lousy being the black guy in horror films, because they always end up dying violently. Even Blade took a beating before the final reel.Lots of slaughter and explosions help to move things along quickly, as well as a decayed corpse hanging from a tree (with the guts hanging out, lovely) and a dangerous tree trap so beloved of the Italian cannibal genre which impales a man in a bloody fashion. However the most memorable moment involves Warbeck being immersed in a half-filled cage in a river, and then attacked by dozens of hungry rats while his cellmate, grey-skinned and covered in bites, sinks beneath the depths. It's a riot if you like Italian cinema.

Antonio Margheriti's (CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE) first Macaroni Combat film, a genre that would become his final mainstay, is an outrageously, over-the-top thrill ride with no political agenda whatsoever.After witnessing the grim suicide of his shell-shocked buddy, a burned-out Army captain (David Warbeck, THE BEYOND) agrees to take on a final suicide mission with the help of two black soldier dudes (Tony King and Bobby Rhodes) and a fine-looking photojournalist (Tisa Farrow, ZOMBIE).As the first Macaroni Combat film about Vietnam, THE LAST HUNTER certainly delivers the exploitation goodness with just a hint of brief nudity. Although the script from Dardano Sacchetti is filled with unintentionally hilarious dialog, mainstream audiences may be turned off by the lack of historical context. Warbeck gives a good performance that is a literal reminiscent of Martin Sheen's Willard from APOCALYPSE NOW.And speaking of that Coppola epic, the Philippine locations in which the film was shot are in fact leftover sets. It comes to show that no matter how blatant the filmmakers are, THE LAST HUNTER is certainly a pleasure to look at just for the settings. Despite not being a good actress as her sister, Tisa does give some enthusiasm into the character and it works rather well.Turn off your brains and enjoy the mindless Italian action.

David Warbeck takes on Charlie in THE LAST HUNTER with only his .45 automatic, and comes pretty close to winning the entire war without the need for a helmet, combat gear, supporting troops, spare ammunition or even his shoes, for that matter. Dispatched on a mission so secretive that even the audience isn't sure exactly what he is supposed to be doing, Warbeck prowls into the Heart of Darkness of the Philipino locales used for filming (some of which have nicely trimmed grass that reminds me of the grounds of a hotel I once stayed in) dragging Tisa Farrow out of harm's way, encountering a secret Party Bunker populated by stoned Yankee soldiers just waiting for something worth raping to come along, and finding himself in the middle of a romantic triangle sub-plot that seems like an attempt to resurrect the power of Sergio Leone's use of the same from FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE, which featured Warbeck in it's flashbacks.The difference being, of course, that DUCK YOU SUCKER's flashbacks served an integral role in telling that movie's story. Here they are a plot device used to set up the film's gag inducing climax showdown, the least of which is said the better. No B grade war movie cliché button goes unpushed, with the added early instance of Americans killing other Americans added to the mix. There is even an over-the-top comedy sequence where a scurrilous Yankee soldier is forced to atone for his misdeeds by donning a bright red baseball hat and dodging enemy fire while running to get a coconut for his superior officer that is right out of "Gilligan's Island" imagery -- including the coconuts -- and I say that with affection.It's also descriptive of what the whole film amounts to, which is an overtly graphic "real life" cartoon about Vietnam for grown ups that lacks any sort of sub-textural depth. The movies it plundered for material to lampoon or exploit (THE DEER HUNTER, APOCALYPSE NOW, THE BOYS IN COMPANY C) all had greater reasons to see them that went beyond what you saw on the screen. THE LAST HUNTER is, by contrast, all surface material, and about the most insightful thing you might learn is that when guys get sprayed by a flamethrower they dance around & scream for a bit before dying. But as far as seeing revolutionary images or gut wrenching social commentary, forget it. Margheriti may have gone into the project with an anti-war message in mind but quickly falls into the trap that Goddard spoke of when stating that it is difficult to make a movie about war without glorifying it. Warbeck looks like he's having a pretty damn good time, even going so far as to not board the rescue chopper flown in during the closing scene, falling back into the jungle shirtless, brandishing his .45, and none the less the wear for having ran around for a half an hour without any shoes on. My only wish is that Margheriti would have committed to what he had started by having Warbeck then shoot the chopper down, though that would have been a problem to explain come time for TIGER JOE, the unofficial 1982 made continuation of the story.The principal weakness with THE LAST HUNTER is two pronged: It has achieved a reputation as being this sickening, exploitational parade of garbage, yet it's excesses & story ideas both have been far surpassed by the films about Vietnam which came after it (check out 84 CHARLIE MOPIC for a movie about a special ops platoon behind enemy lines that will leave you speechless). And it's weak narrative structure reduces the action into a string of moments that while having an undeniable visual power, don't really serve to tell a story populated by people that the viewer comes to care about. Unlike Marghertiti's YOR HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE, the film does not resonate on a level where one believes in the people, places and events shown, and the movie becomes a Geek Show. One waits to see the good stuff, and in 1980 the images may have been outrageous, but other than watching Warbeck club a grass snake & a bunch of rats swarming over him in a Tiger Cage scene there isn't a whole lot here that is really too offensive.So I dunno. THE BOYS IN COMPANY C was a satirical farce meant to elicit genuine laughter at the conventions of war. Here the laughter is more at the outrageousness of Margheriti's appropriation of the same yet without the meaning. If the idea of watching David Warbeck torch a horde of Gooks with a flamethrower is your idea of a good time, the movie will deliver. On that plane of thinking, THE LAST HUNTER is a classic in every sense of the word, though it may be a classic in bad taste, and lacking the sort of joyful, stupid, gleefulness found in other Margheriti films like YOR and KILLER FISH. I worship Margheriti's work and can live with the thought that this one didn't really work for me. But I will opine that if we'd had a couple of dozen David Warbecks running around 'Nam with their .45s and kicking ass, we probably would have won.