White Ghost (1988)

White Ghost (1988)
Director: BJ Davis
Starring: William Katt, Martin Hewitt, Reb Brown
Format: Stream

Plot: An M.I.A. US soldier nicknamed White Ghost (Katt) lives in hiding in the jungles of communist Vietnam. The US army finds out about him and sends a black ops team to rescue him. However, the team is lead by a man who wants White Ghost dead.

The Greatest American Hero was one of my favourite shows when I was a kid. The show aired from 1981 to 1983, when I was aged 6 through to 9, the perfect age to appreciate the show's wacky appeal. Hell, I just loved getting to see a live action caped superhero in action, even if he couldn't fly properly or use his superheroes to save himself. And that theme song... awesome.

Lead star William Katt unfortunately faded into obscurity after the show's run, apart from showing up in a couple of the House horror/comedies I honestly couldn't tell you what he's been doing since. A look at his IMDB page shows that after Greatest American Hero he acted in a bunch of Perry Mason TV movies. Who knew? Well, luckily for us after that he chose White Ghost, a low-budget action flick that I happened to find in full on Youtube. The listing caught my eye because of one name - Reb Brown - an actor who I've raved about before on this blog for his bad, bad acting which is a sight to behold. Sadly Brown has only a small role in this, but despite that it's a good ol' time anyway.

Besides Brown and Katt, White Ghost also features Martin Hewitt (THE PARATROOPER), making for something of a bad-acting trinity. And it's directed by the guy who made the Brandon Lee vehicle Lazer Mission!

The storyline is part Missing in Action, part Predator (the team aspect, not the alien) and part Rambo. There are plenty of great cheesy moments, from Katt's frizzy mullet (which he unfortunately gets cut early in the piece) to the facepaint he dons that makes him look like the bassist from a Norwegian black metal band. After growing up on Katt as a comedic actor it's hard to take him seriously in a straight-forward action movie like this, and his facial expressions don't help. Let's just say his stoic face is more Alzheimer's patient than ass-kicking soldier.

The climax of White Ghost is typical of these movies, with all the explosions and gunfighting an action fan can wish for. My only complaint is the misuse of Reb Brown - he spends most of the movie in an office and only enters the jungle in the third act. He does get to brandish two machine guns and use his trademark yell, which I appreciate, but it's too little too late. I really wish they had cast Brown in the lead role (ala STRIKE COMMANDO) or at least in the main baddie role which instead went to Wayne Crawford (BARRACUDDA). But that complaint aside, White Ghost is a fun actioner - not quite as cheesy as classics like Strike Commando or Deadly Prey but worthwhile for fans of cheesy shoot-em-ups.

MAY-DE TO BE MOCKED: Strike Commando (1987)

 Note: Throughout the month of May I will be watching Mockbusters, those low-budget movies which are made purely to cash in on a recent successful blockbuster. I call this May-de to be Mocked!

Strike Commando (1987)
Director: Bruno Mattei (as Vincent Dawn)
Starring: Reb Brown, Christopher Connelly, Alex Vitale
Format: Streaming (Youtube)

Plot: Michael Ransom (Reb Brown) and his crack Strike team are double-crossed while attacking a Viet Cong camp during the Vietnam War. He survives and while recovering in a Vietnamese village discovers that Russian soldiers have made their way into North Vietnam. With the help of the villagers he returns to the American forces, but is told to get proof of his claims. Heading back into the jungle he finds the villagers slaughtered by Russian henchman Jakoda, and becomes a one man killing machine in search of revenge, against Jakoda, as well as his double-crossing superior officer.

After watching (and thoroughly enjoying) Robowar, I was excited to find out that Bruno Mattei and Reb Brown had teamed up a year earlier for this, another b-grade mockbuster masterpiece!

Bruno had a lot of fun ripping off Predator in Robowar, and here he does the same for another 80s action classic, Rambo. So naturally we get a lot of kills using an over-sized hunting knife, and plenty of shots stolen straight from Stallone's big budget blockbuster, such as when Reb rises out of a river and blows away the bad guys with his massive machine gun.

The action is once again top notch, with a lot of cool explosions, machine gun fire, electrocutions, flamethrowers, martial arts fighting and the like. There are some WTF moments, like Vietnamese villagers who wear white face paint and chant "A-mer-i-can" over and over like some weird cult, and an attempt at giving Ransom a human side, as he bonds with a young Vietnamese villager. Also adding to the appeal of Strike Commando is the fact that Chris Connelly (RAIDERS OF ATLANTIS) plays the traitorous Col Radek.

Most of the cheese factor comes from Jakoda (Alex Vitale) who is one jacked up skinhead Commie. Is it acceptable to call someone a Commie? Or is that un-PC? It doesn't matter, because this movie doesn't care, as evidenced by a black American soldier telling a story about stealing watermelons in Alabama, or Reb calling a Vietnamese soldier "rice ball". But back to Jakoda, this guy is so damn hammy. He keeps calling Ransom "American-ski", which starts off sounding ridiculous but becomes hilarious through overuse, and by the time Jakoda screams it during not one but two final showdowns with Ransom, I was laughing my ass off.

Okay, what you really want to know is: Does Reb yell a lot? And the answer is: He most certainly does! Ol' yeller is in fine form here. You'll marvel as he yells "Ja-ko-da" over and over while furiously shooting up empty village huts. One of my favourite lines is when Ransom is surprised by a VC soldier jumping out of long grass. Ransom knocks him out while yelling "Jesus! Scared the shit out of me!" Hell, even the lines where he doesn't completely yell, Reb still sounds like he's in need of a laxative, stat.

I think I enjoyed Strike Commando a bit more than Robowar. The plot is definitely more interesting, the support cast is better and Jakoda makes for a better villain that whatever the hell that cyborg thing was in Robowar. They're both awesome movies, search them out!

MAY-DE TO BE MOCKED: Robowar (1988)

Note: Throughout the month of May I will be watching Mockbusters, those low-budget movies which are made purely to cash in on a recent successful blockbuster. I call this May-de to be Mocked!

Robowar (1988)
Director: Bruno Mattei (as Vincent Dawn)
Starring: Reb Brown, Catherine Hickland, Romano Puppo, Jim Gaines
Format: Streaming (YouTube)

Plot: A team of American commandos is sent into the Central American jungle to rescue hostages captured by guerrillas. But it turns out their real mission is to recover a top-secret cyborg fighting machine, Omega-1, who lurks in the jungle and hunts them one by one.

If the synopsis above isn't enough of a clue, let me make it clear that this is a complete rip off of the Arnie blockbuster Predator, just with a government-made cyborg replacing the alien hunter. We're talking about complete scenes ripped off by Italian filmmaker Bruno Mattei, with a mostly Italian cast, shot probably on the budget of a small buffet meal in the land of awesome 80s action, The Philippines!

The early proceedings are fairly run-of-the-mill jungle action, but once Omega-1 turns up, oh boy do things get silly. And awesome!

Omega-1 is a cross between the Predator and Robocop in concept, but he has a costume which looks like a low-budget Power Rangers villain (I realise Power Rangers is low budget enough, but this is even worse). Naturally they attempt to pull off something akin to the "computer-assisted POV" of both the Predator and Robocop, but it comes across extremely cheaply. And the inane robotic chatter of Omega-1 sounds like a cross between Twiki from the 70s show Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and 80s hit Max Headroom. Just bizarre. See if you can watch any of the scenes involving this so-called killing machine without laughing your ass off.

The acting is pretty bad across the board, but the standout is Reb Brown, who plays Murphy Black, the leader of the commandos. He's our pseudo-Arnie, only with acting that's more wooden than anything the Governator himself ever managed (I know, incredible right!), and with a hell of a lot of yelling. If you haven't seen Reb in action before, he just looooves to yell at the top of his lungs. Most of his lines are along the lines of "Come on, we have to move!" or "Get out of here" or just plain old "Arrrghhh!". Reb can portray any emotion, as long as it involves yelling at the top of his lungs.

This was my first time seeing Reb Brown in action. I knew the name from reading about the two Captain America TV movies in which he played Steve Rogers/Cap in the 80s, but after watching RoboWar I definitely need to see more of this guy! If he's like this in all of his movies, I've found another inductee for the Crappy Action Star Hall of Fame.

There's a twist in the ending, but really the plot isn't anything special. If you've seen Predator or any other jungle warfare movie you know what to expect. But don't let that put you off. This bad boy is action packed with gun battles and explosions, and the unintentionally-hilarious robot design and Reb Brown's over-the-top goofy acting make this an easy recommendation.