In retrospect, I'm sure the surviving members of the Cobra Mission would admit that their mission to rescue post-war US prisoners of war from the jungles of 'Nam wasn't a resounding success. After all, they just got nearly everyone killed, and came back with less men than they started off with.
Sure, mysterious Colonel Gordon Mitchell could have prevented a lot of deaths by being explaining things a bit better when he tried to dissuade the quartet of veterans from going back to the jungle to rescue the boys left behind, but then again they were egged on by Major Enzo Castellari, director of Keoma and The Big Racket. If Enzo had asked me to go over the top during the Somme, I would have done so without questions, screaming 'No man born free shall ever die!' before dying in a hail of machine gun fire.
It's not only Gordon that's trying to subtly explain that getting tooled up with machine guns and blowing away most of South East Asia is a bad idea. Ennio Girolami tries to do so too, but then the guys are so enrage that Ennio's bumping the parents of the POWs that they just give him a kicking instead. Even Donald Pleasance embarks on a confusing ramble about the US...before helping them into the jungle to massacre everyone.
I haven't even spoken about our grunts yet - there's Christopher Connolley, a man who predicts the lifestyle of modern, 2018 man by lying about on his couch, playing video games while barely registering anything his wife is saying, then there's badly dubbed John Steiner, a drifter, and Mark, a violent guy who loves a punch up. Last of all is Richard, who has voluntarily committed himself in an asylum. There's a fifth guy, but he chooses not to go so...that bit was pointless.
These fellows do find a POW camp, but they also find out the hard way that the Vietnam and US governments don't want these POWs to get home. That's not going to stop these guys, however, as most of the jungle goes up in an explosion, numerous extras are blown away, and even after the grim, depressing ending, one of Cobra Mission says...."Forget about it - It's Nam." You didn't forget about it! That's why you went back there!
Strangely disjointed (Connolly goes on an overnight mission somewhere that isn't explained in the slightest), this film is packed full of the good stuff, but also has a contrasting anti-war theme, with scarred villagers and hints that at least one or two of the group have killed innocents before. It ticks all the boxes of an Italian eighties jungle warfare film - straw huts explode, boats explode, one liners don't make much sense, Luciano Pigozzi turns up, and people pretend to fire machine guns from helicopters they clearly aren't anywhere near.
Sure, mysterious Colonel Gordon Mitchell could have prevented a lot of deaths by being explaining things a bit better when he tried to dissuade the quartet of veterans from going back to the jungle to rescue the boys left behind, but then again they were egged on by Major Enzo Castellari, director of Keoma and The Big Racket. If Enzo had asked me to go over the top during the Somme, I would have done so without questions, screaming 'No man born free shall ever die!' before dying in a hail of machine gun fire.
It's not only Gordon that's trying to subtly explain that getting tooled up with machine guns and blowing away most of South East Asia is a bad idea. Ennio Girolami tries to do so too, but then the guys are so enrage that Ennio's bumping the parents of the POWs that they just give him a kicking instead. Even Donald Pleasance embarks on a confusing ramble about the US...before helping them into the jungle to massacre everyone.
I haven't even spoken about our grunts yet - there's Christopher Connolley, a man who predicts the lifestyle of modern, 2018 man by lying about on his couch, playing video games while barely registering anything his wife is saying, then there's badly dubbed John Steiner, a drifter, and Mark, a violent guy who loves a punch up. Last of all is Richard, who has voluntarily committed himself in an asylum. There's a fifth guy, but he chooses not to go so...that bit was pointless.
These fellows do find a POW camp, but they also find out the hard way that the Vietnam and US governments don't want these POWs to get home. That's not going to stop these guys, however, as most of the jungle goes up in an explosion, numerous extras are blown away, and even after the grim, depressing ending, one of Cobra Mission says...."Forget about it - It's Nam." You didn't forget about it! That's why you went back there!
Strangely disjointed (Connolly goes on an overnight mission somewhere that isn't explained in the slightest), this film is packed full of the good stuff, but also has a contrasting anti-war theme, with scarred villagers and hints that at least one or two of the group have killed innocents before. It ticks all the boxes of an Italian eighties jungle warfare film - straw huts explode, boats explode, one liners don't make much sense, Luciano Pigozzi turns up, and people pretend to fire machine guns from helicopters they clearly aren't anywhere near.