DVD review: Fortress of Amerikkka (1989)

In a story ripped from today's headlines, America has become a land where the brave must fight to be free. A secret band of militant mercenaries are terrorizing the entire nation. They are the Fortress of Amerikka, a brutal, defiant tool of the conspiracy of labor, corporate and bureaucratic elites, set on a deadly coures to destroy the basic tenets of American life. From their base in Troma City, California, this group of crazed mercs shoot and blow up thousands of innocent people as they strive to destroy democracy. Fortress of Amerikkka is written and directed by Eric Louzil. The acting ranges from good to decent to poor, pornstar Kascha Papillon has a role in this (mostly spent topless). The camerawork and editing is good. The soundtrack is nice. There are some unintentional hilarious scenes (due to bad acting) in this not to mention the ridiculous voice over in the beginning of the flick. It´s violent and pretty gory, we get big juicy squibs, bloody gunshotwounds, arms being ripped off, a man gets his head slowly cut off. Men, women, kids, elderly are all getting killed in this. There´s gratuitous T and A in this.
This review is based upon the region 2 DVD release from Troma/One World. German and english audio is available. It´s labeled as a director´s cut.
Rating: 6½ out of 7. I didn´t know much of Fortress of Amerikkka before putting the DVD disc into my player and this was a very nice surprise. It´s a change of pace from Troma, this isn´t as goofy as some of their flicks tend to be, sure there are some intentional comic relief, for instance in the voice over being used which greatly dampens the potential Fortress of Amerikkka has as an action flick. I imagine that the idiotic voice over in the beginning wasn´t there originally, perhaps it was done to lighten the mood in post editing. It seems that this flick has gotten criticism for being one of the worst Troma flicks but that´s perhaps due to it being different from their ordinary comedic, goofy movies that I guess many of the fans are expecting.

/JL

 

Bonus pic of Kascha Papillon below... ;-)