DVD review: Forgotten Heroes (1990)

A group of young marines are sent into Cambodia on a special mission to bring out Russian general Gregoi Zelenkov (William Smith), who´s going to defect to the USA in the search for liberty. Forgotten Heroes is written by Larry Duhart, Bud Fleisher and Jack Marino who also is the producer and the director. The acting, camerawork and editing is decent. The production values are pretty good when looking at clothing, equipment and they even managed to get a helicopter or two. The fact that the actors use blankfiring guns instead of the airsoft guns that nowadays are so popular in independent features is great, it adds to the realism. I will say that I loved the helicopter gunship in the beginning of the movie, something we don´t see too often in independent flicks. The americans are all clean cut/heroic stereotypes (akin to the characters in John Wayne´s The Green Berets) so you won´t find any drug addicts, murderers or rapists in this. It´s just too polished to be realistic but knowing that outspoken purpose of the flick is to celeberate the american soldiers who fought in the Vietnam war (it´s clearly stated on the website) it´s hardly surprising that the darker aspects of war isn´t touched upon at all. The action set pieces is pretty decent, we get lots of shooting and explosions. There is even some swordplay as a marine and a russian commando fight it out with machetes. There is only brief gore in this and a surprisingly few squibs. The gore fx highlight is a scene when they find a american who has been partially skinned. There´s no T & A in this but this being a warmovie that shouldn´t come as a big surprise, there hardly any women at all in this.
This review is based upon the region all (Region 0) DVD release from Marino Film group. You can buy a copy here at http://www.forgottenheroesthemovie.com/ .
Rating: 2½ out of 7. Forgotten Heroes is pretty enjoyable if you´re looking for one of those easygoing non-complicated war movies where everything is black and white, you know who the good guys are and you know who the bad guys are (vietnamese and russians in this flick). I would recommend this to fans of the movies directed by Cirio H. Santiago where the americans get to win the Vietnam war, where heroism and patriotism is celeberated. If you want something more realistic check out Click (2003) which undoubteldy does have it´s flaws but is very good in some parts.

/JL