A tube-ful of TV actors risk their dignity in this abysmal vehicle for action-movie auteur David Heavener.
Four traumatized Vietnam vets exit the hospital they reside in for a camping trip. But the campground is within the electrified fences of a white supremacist fanatic (Bruce Glover), who orders fascist hordes to hunt down and kill the ex-soldiers. Lone survivor Alexander Puckett (David Heavener) is
mistakenly left for dead (two times), but with help from skinny-dipping girl campers Rachel (Rachelle Carson) and Libby (Danielle Brisebois), he survives, counterattacks, and vanquishes the villains one by one. As he leaves for a bright new life, Puckett croons the highly appropriate closing
ballad "Is It Over Now."
Hailing from Louiseville, Kentucky, the hardworking star-writer-director is a husky-looking chap with an amiable smile and a pleasant singing voice. An earlier era might have found David Heavener in singing-cowboy roles, strumming around the campfire and engaging in mild fisticuffs. But arriving
on the scene in the 1980s he aspired to be a countrified Bronson or Stallone in a series of miserable Z-grade movies. His fellow actors fare no better, though Burt Ward (from the "Batman" TV show) is lucky enough be cast as a mute, thus escaping the wretched dialogue. "Welcome Back Kotter"
Sweathogs Robert Hegyes and Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs reunite as imperiled vets, and a closing cameo by comic Gary Owens ("Laugh-In") suggests that the whole thing isn't meant seriously, but between shootings, rapes, crucifixions, poor continuity, corn-pone sentiment and musical numbers, there must
be a better way to have a dumb time. (Violence, nudity, substance abuse, profanity.) leave a comment
