DVD review: Hell on the Battleground (1989)

The two U.S. Army Sgt Casey (Fritz Matthews) and Lance (Ted Prior) have been proven many times in Vietnam. Sent out with very young recruits on patrol, they come unexpectedly into an ambush. Against numerically superior Russian special forces they are drawn into a desperate fight to the last round, in which there is only one survivor. Hell on the Battleground is written and directed by David A. Prior. Miserably bad acting, despite the fact that it has a short running time it´s feels way too overlong. There is many unintentionally funny moments but the film is so tedious that it´s hard to laugh about it. The camerawork and editing is decent. The soundtrack is for the most part just wrong, plain wrong. Despite lots of firefights there isn´t an ounce of excitement to be found as the actionsequences are so inept and repetitive that it´s almost a physical pain to watch them. This film might actually feature some of the most pathetic explosions in cinematic history. I´d like to point out that this is probably the only Vietnam war flick that doesn´t feature any vietnamese (NVA,Viet Cong or civilians), the enemy consists of russians. The set looks nothing like Vietnam, the uniforms and the weapons used are wrong, just plain wrong. And for some reason, god knows why, Lance and Casey's wives ( Alyson Davis and Ingrid Vold) are along with them, encamped on the battlefield but Alyson Davis is good looking and provide some eye candy. There is violence, mostly repetetive and overlong shootouts. There is almost no gore, we get a few squibs and that´s it but this is due to the german censors. There is a little bit of T & A, Ingrid Vold gives us some topless nudity and there is even a sex scene but you don´t see very much.
This review is based upon the german region 2 DVD release from KNM Home Entertainment GmbH, english audiotrack is available. I´m convinced that it´s cut (evidenced by some really weird editing now and then) but this is the only DVD release of this film.
Rating: 0½ out of 7. Hell on the Battleground is a very stupid, boring and inept war movie. Perhaps it would have been a little bit better if I have had the opportunity to review a uncut release but I seriously doubt it. Don´t waste your money or your time on this...

/JL