After sitting through the 100 minutes of this film the only enduring feature about it is the occasional shot of the beautiful African country side. There just simply wasn't anything else good about it.
The movie centers around a group of hard as nails mercenaries whose assignment is to penetrate deep into the jungles of the Congo to retrieve Government documents captured by a rebel army. The mercenaries, or red berets as they are called, are made up of a motley bunch of hombres, there's the tough Irish man, the angry and un-social French man, the useless Captain who's trying to save his tattered reputation and a murderous German who is a pro-Nazi, and yes he hates every man, woman and child that happened to be born black.
When watching this movie the cheap production values become apparent, (but hay I wasn't expecting a Hollywood blockbuster!) I believe the producers blew the majority of the budget on the enormous logistical nightmare of moving the crew, actors and equipment all over the African jungles and deserts. Other bad points are the pacing, which is quite slow and dull, I found I was actually looking forward to going to the can to get away for a few minutes! The acting is nothing to write home about either, nor are the few battle sequences which aren't exciting or realistic. I also found that the plot didn't always make sense, it appears the video version I watched was chopped and cut from the original. In the end I didn't care as I didn't really give a toss about the characters or the movie in general.
In short the only redeeming feature to this film is the interesting location work (which the producers claim to be the first people to shoot a movie there), but this alone couldn't save this turkey. I only recommend this film to the die hard war movie buffs, but even then don't expect too much.
The movie centers around a group of hard as nails mercenaries whose assignment is to penetrate deep into the jungles of the Congo to retrieve Government documents captured by a rebel army. The mercenaries, or red berets as they are called, are made up of a motley bunch of hombres, there's the tough Irish man, the angry and un-social French man, the useless Captain who's trying to save his tattered reputation and a murderous German who is a pro-Nazi, and yes he hates every man, woman and child that happened to be born black.
When watching this movie the cheap production values become apparent, (but hay I wasn't expecting a Hollywood blockbuster!) I believe the producers blew the majority of the budget on the enormous logistical nightmare of moving the crew, actors and equipment all over the African jungles and deserts. Other bad points are the pacing, which is quite slow and dull, I found I was actually looking forward to going to the can to get away for a few minutes! The acting is nothing to write home about either, nor are the few battle sequences which aren't exciting or realistic. I also found that the plot didn't always make sense, it appears the video version I watched was chopped and cut from the original. In the end I didn't care as I didn't really give a toss about the characters or the movie in general.
In short the only redeeming feature to this film is the interesting location work (which the producers claim to be the first people to shoot a movie there), but this alone couldn't save this turkey. I only recommend this film to the die hard war movie buffs, but even then don't expect too much.
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