3:15 (US - 1986) Directed by Larry Gross. Written by Sam Bernard and Michael Jacobs. Cast: Adam Baldwin, Deborah Foreman, Scott McGinnis, Danny De La Paz, Ed Lauter, Rene Auberjonois, Wayne Crawford, John Scott Clough, Mario Van Peebles, Wings Hauser, Jesse Aragon, Bradford Bancroft, Jeb Ellis-Brown, Panchito Gomez, Wendy Barry, Joseph Brutsman, Lori Eastside, Nancy Locke Hauser, Dean Devlin, John Doe, Roy London, Van Quattro, Gina Gershon, Rusty Cundieff. (R, 85 mins) If you had cable in the late '80s, then you probably caught at least some of 3:15, a minor entry in the "high school gangs run amok" subgenre that, quality-wise, falls somewhere right in the middle between the exemplary CLASS OF 1984 and the ridiculous TUFF TURF. Of course, there were many others during this period from 1982 to 1987--SAVAGE STREETS, YOUNG WARRIORS, THE NEW KIDS, DANGEROUSLY CLOSE, UNDER COVER, THE PRINCIPAL, and the largely comedic cult favorite THREE O'CLOCK HIGH to name a few--so it was easy for 3:15 to get lost in the shuffle. It got only sporadic play in theaters in the spring of 1986 after two years on the shelf, when it was finally picked up by the apparently one-and-done Dakota Entertainment Corporation, though in nearly every way, it's got an undeniable Cannon aura about it, starting with the score by Gary Chang (52 PICK-UP, FIREWALKER). It also had a confusing marketing campaign where it was hard to ascertain what the movie was even called. The official one-sheet has it as 3:15: THE MOMENT OF TRUTH, but when it opened in Toledo, OH in April 1986, it was advertised as the clunky SHOWDOWN AT LINCOLN HIGH AT 3:15, while the fine print in the ad called it 3:15 - MOMENT OF TRUTH, and the theater listings had it as SHOWDOWN AT LINCOLN HIGH. The actual title on the film is simply 3:15, which is what's stuck. To date, it's the only feature film directed by Larry Gross, a veteran screenwriter and occasional back-in-the-day Walter Hill collaborator who co-wrote 48 HRS, STREETS OF FIRE, and GERONIMO: AN AMERICAN LEGEND, with other writing credits ranging from Wayne Wang's CHINESE BOX to Clint Eastwood's TRUE CRIME to the doomed movie version of PROZAC NATION.
Just out on Blu-ray from Scorpion (because physical media is dead), 3:15 is essentially a face-off between two actors who were best known at the time for their presence in other movies that dealt with tangentially-related subjects. Hero Adam Baldwin was the title character in 1980's MY BODYGUARD, protecting scrawny Chris Makepeace from the relentless bullying of Matt Dillon, while villain Danny De La Paz was best known as Chuco in 1979's BOULEVARD NIGHTS, one of several entries in a short-lived gang craze from that year, including THE WANDERERS, OVER THE EDGE, WALK PROUD, and the classic THE WARRIORS. It doesn't help the credibility of 3:15 when, at the time of filming in 1984, Baldwin was 22 and looked older, while De La Paz was 27, and both were still playing high school students, but all of the kids here look way too old, with several extras in a few shots who appear to be within striking distance of 40. Baldwin is Jeff, who was once a member of the Cobras but walked away when leader Cinco (De La Paz) killed a guy for no reason. A year later, Jeff is a tough but straight-arrow kid with a nice girlfriend in Sherry (VALLEY GIRL's Deborah Foreman, who had MY CHAUFFEUR and APRIL FOOL'S DAY in theaters around the same time), but his past inevitably comes back to haunt him. The school is overrun with drugs and crime, and cowardly principal Horner (Rene Auberjonois)--introduced shouting "These kids are so high on dope that they might as well be zombies!"--turns to cynical cop Moran (Ed Lauter), who organizes a raid targeting Cinco and his gang. A frantic Cinco asks Jeff to stash some drugs for him for old times' sake, and when he refuses and Cinco is arrested, the gang leader vows revenge. Since Cinco managed to dump the drugs before being apprehended, Moran can only hold him for 48 hours, and the whole school knows shit's going down in two days, at 3:15, when Cinco and the Cobras intend to deal with Jeff once and for all.
3:15 opening in Toledo, OH on 4/18/1986, advertised
as SHOWDOWN AT LINCOLN HIGH
Rarely in the "high school gangs run amok" craze have the adults in charge been more useless than they are here. Horner tries to talk Jeff into testifying against Cinco, and when he won't, Horner does what any dedicated education leader does: leaves the school until the showdown is over, right around the time Moran and the cops finally show up, even though Cinco and the Cobras have basically been standing at street corners shouting that Jeff is dead meat at 3:15. There's certainly some subtext in the way the script by Sam Bernard (RAD, WARLOCK: THE ARMAGEDDON) and Michael Jacobs (CERTAIN FURY, HALLOWEEN 5: THE REVENGE OF MICHAEL MYERS) lays out the conflict between Jeff and Cinco like it's an ugly breakup, with Cinco the jilted spouse who just can't let Jeff go. It's not an unsung classic of its kind, but 3:15 is entertaining B-movie trash, even if it doesn't utilize some of its established plot elements to their full potential: why introduce a high-school gang of Asian martial arts experts if they never come into play? Cannon sure as shit wouldn't have passed up that opportunity. Gross does manage to pull off one memorably stylish sequence with the raid on the school and the pursuit of Cinco and the Cobras set to a very effectively-used "Lined Up" by Shriekback. It also has an oddball supporting cast with some cult favorites like Foreman, Lauter, Auberjonois, Wayne Crawford (JAKE SPEED) as a concerned teacher ("Goddammit Jeff, will ya listen to me?"), John Doe as a drunk guy trying to get into a club, and the great Wings Hauser getting one scene as Sherry's Jeff-hating dad (Wings' wife Nancy plays her mom). You also get some famous names-to-be like Mario Van Peebles as the leader of the M-16s, the school's black gang (like the kung-fu gang, they never factor into the proceedings), Gina Gershon as a Cobra babe, future FEAR OF A BLACK HAT and TALES FROM THE HOOD director Rusty Cundieff as an M-16, and Dean Devlin as "Gum Chewer," years before turning to screenwriting and partnering with director Roland Emmerich on hits like UNIVERSAL SOLDIER, STARGATE, INDEPENDENCE DAY, and THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW.
Does anyone know what this movie is called?
The ad says one thing but the credits say
another. Is "at 3:15" part of the title or is there just one showing at 3:15?
Directed by Nico Mastorakis. Written by Nico Mastorakis and Fred C. Perry. Cast: Meg Foster, Wings Hauser, David McCallum, Robert Morley, Steve Railsback, John Michaels, Tracy Young, Summer Thomas, Michael Yannatos, Dina Yanakou. (Unrated, 92 mins) I'm always happy to see any '80s obscurity from the video store glory days get a lovingly-assembled Blu-ray release, but at the same time, we have to wonder if the well's getting a little dry or if the priorities are being misplaced when faced with the resurrection of something like 1987's THE WIND. Directed and co-written by Greek exploitation auteur Nico Mastorakis (ISLAND OF DEATH, THE ZERO BOYS, IN THE COLD OF THE NIGHT), THE WIND is just out on Blu-ray from Arrow Video (because physical media is dead), with a pristine restoration and a booklet with a well-written essay by film historian Kat Ellinger that dutifully attempts to find thematic subtext, in the process putting more thought into the film than Mastorakis ever did. Shifting his operation from Greece to Hollywood around 1986, the now-79-year-old Mastorakis was a key player in the early days of direct-to-video, and his films were ubiquitous in the inventories of every video store in existence from the mid '80s to the mid '90s. There's been a primarily nostalgia-based resurgence of interest in his work in recent years, though some of these Blu-ray releases demonstrate a definite sense of style (he loves silhouetted, backlit-fog shots) when seen in restored, remastered form and in their proper aspect ratios, and his independently-funded projects almost always demonstrated a higher-than-expected attention to quality production values. Similar to Roger Corman, a few future big names found some work on Mastorakis crews: nearly a decade before THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, Frank Darabont was an assistant art director on 1986's THE ZERO BOYS, and several Mastorakis films--including THE WIND--were scored by a then-unknown Hans Zimmer, years before becoming an 11-time Oscar-nominee and Best Original Score winner for 1994's THE LION KING. And like Corman in his drive-in heyday, Mastorakis' low-budget films were profitable enough with the worldwide demand for home video product that he had the payroll to secure the services of actors who might've been in a slump or on the downside of their careers, but were established professionals whose names or faces would attract new release wall browsers looking for something to rent when their first choices were checked out on a Friday or Saturday night.
But THE WIND, which hit VHS back in the day courtesy of the great Vestron offshoot Lightning Video, only manages to live down to nearly every negative association with the term "straight-to-video." It's a horror film that isn't scary, a thriller that isn't suspenseful, and it's got a cast of familiar, reputable actors wasting their time in something that not only wasn't good enough for the big screen, but wasn't even worth $2 to watch at home on a slow night. Mastorakis never made a great movie, but he made some that were at least entertaining, and THE WIND (released in some parts of the world as THE EDGE OF TERROR) has to be one of his worst. In a rare lead, Meg Foster and her always-captivating ice-blue eyes star as pulp genre novelist Sian Anderson, who's taking some time away from L.A. and her boyfriend John (David McCallum) to go to a remote Greek island to work on her latest book. She rents an ancient villa from British expat islander Elias (a typically harumphing Robert Morley), who informs her of the secret passageways and tunnels that were constructed under the buildings in early A.D. times as a safe place to retreat in case of attacking ships. He also tells her, in a truly clumsy bit of bush-league foreshadowing, to disregard the closets that he's left locked because "they don't contain anything valuable...just my son's hunting weapons!" The surrounding villas are deserted, and the only other person hanging around is unreliable, Detroit-born handyman Phil (Wings Hauser), who's left the place a mess and acts twitchy and weird from the moment he first appears. Elias has had just about enough of Phil and is about to fire him when Phil snaps and kills him. Hearing a noise outside, Sian looks out of a window and sees Phil burying the body. Phil also sees her see him burying the body, and so begins a night of terror as Sian barricades herself in the villa, but Phil, knowing other ways in, cuts off the phone and keeps popping up and chasing her around as violent winds kick up and howl throughout the night.
A sort of REAR WINDOW-ish home invasion thriller on a deserted Greek isle (Mastorakis shot the film on the island of Monemvassia) at least provides some occasionally interesting atmosphere, but THE WIND doesn't have nearly enough material to sustain interest for an hour and a half. Phil keeps getting in the villa, Sian keeps getting away, he disappears for a while, then he turns up again and the process repeats. The villa isn't very big, so Foster and Hauser move strangely slow and with little urgency during these "suspense" sequences. Sian's initial reaction to what she's witnessed and having a sickle-wielding Phil coming for her is played so oddly nonchalant that for a while, it almost seems like Mastorakis is setting up some clumsy twist. Sian talks to herself a lot, so you might think that she's imagining all of it, or what we're seeing is her book playing out onscreen as she workshops the plot machinations in her head. That would've been predictable, but it would've been something. THE WIND just seems to kill a lot of time, like Mastorakis is just dragging things out until he has enough footage to call it a feature-length movie. That's especially the case with a nothing role for Steve Railsback as Kesner, an American boat captain stranded at the village police station because of the high winds. He appears 50 minutes in and ends up checking on Sian after John places a phone call to the local police, then makes a quick exit a few minutes later when he's killed by Phil.
Speaking of actors with nothing to do, McCallum never leaves L.A. and makes a few brief appearances beside what might be his own swimming pool, on the phone telling a terrified Sian to lock the doors and that he'll get the cops to check on her, and the next time she calls, he's floating around the pool seemingly without a care in the world. And that's the last we see of him. Hauser as an unhinged psycho killer is usually a can't-miss proposition, as anyone who's experienced his iconic performance as crazed pimp Ramrod in 1982's VICE SQUAD can attest, but even he's coasting through on autopilot here, probably more interested in the Mastorakis-provided Greek vacation and maybe wrapping things up early so he can take a day and check out the Parthenon. The whole Greek setting is largely superfluous until a final, slow-moving chase manages to show off some scenic Monemvassia locales before Phil's hilarious, windy comeuppance (four guys are credited with operating the wind machine, and they definitely earned their pay). Foster was always a solid actress who never really got the shots she deserved (does anyone remember that she played Cagney in the first six episodes of CAGNEY & LACEY before CBS execs deemed her "too aggressive" and feared viewers would perceive the character as a lesbian, leading to her being replaced by Sharon Gless?), and while it's nice to see her in a starring role, it's in a film that's completely unworthy of her talents, and one that probably didn't need the deluxe Blu-ray treatment. Still, I'm glad it exists...I guess.
DEADLY FORCE (US - 1983) Directed by Paul Aaron. Written by Ken Barnett, Barry Schneider and Robert Vincent O'Neil. Cast: Wings Hauser, Joyce Ingalls, Paul Shenar, Al Ruscio, Arlen Dean Snyder, Lincoln Kilpatrick, Bud Ekins, J. Victor Lopez, Hector Elias, Ramon Franco, Gina Gallego, Paul Benjamin, Big Yank, Estelle Getty, Victoria Vanderkloot, Richard Beauchamp, Ned Eisenberg, Frank Ronzio. (R, 96 mins) Wings Hauser made such a memorable impression as psycho pimp Ramrod in the grimy 1982 sleeper hit and cable cult favorite VICE SQUAD (he even sang the theme song) that producer Sandy Howard rewarded him with the hero lead in the next year's DEADLY FORCE. Born in 1947, Hauser began his career in the late 1960s with small roles in movies, TV, and on daytime soaps, first gaining notoriety on THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS in 1977. He even tried to start a music career, releasing an album on RCA in 1975 titled Your Love Keeps Me Off the Streets, recorded under the name "Wings Livinryte." Though he would occasionally land supporting roles in prestigious projects both award-winning (1984's A SOLDIER'S STORY, 1999's THE INSIDER) and woefully misbegotten (1987's TOUGH GUYS DON'T DANCE), Hauser is best known for his many B-movies in the '80s and '90s, including 1984's MUTANT, 1989's THE SIEGE OF FIREBASE GLORIA, and 1990's STREET ASYLUM, which paired him with the unlikely G. Gordon Liddy. The now-71-year-old Hauser's output has slowed in recent years (he had guest spots on episodes of CASTLE and RIZZOLI & ISLES in 2016), but his actor son Cole Hauser seems poised to follow in his dad's footsteps in B-movies and on TV, most recently as Kevin Costner's right-hand man in the Paramount Network series YELLOWSTONE). But Wings Hauser was definitely having a moment in the early '80s thanks to his unforgettable performance in VICE SQUAD, and it was enough to make him a reliable presence as plays-by-his-own-rules cops and vicious killers for years to come.
Wings Hauser IS Stoney Cooper!
DEADLY FORCE failed to capitalize on Hauser's VICE SQUAD momentum and was quickly in and out of theaters in the summer of 1983. Like VICE SQUAD, it ended up in constant cable rotation for a few years after but where VICE SQUAD's cult following has endured, DEADLY FORCE more or less fell into relative obscurity, never even getting a DVD release. That's changed now that Shout! Factory has granted it a Blu-ray resurrection, despite the fact that we've all been told time and again that physical media is dead. Hauser is disgraced, alcoholic, ex-L.A. cop Stoney Cooper, who's now scraping by as a NYC street hustler and freelance strong-arm problem-solver. He's summoned back to L.A. by his fatherly old partner Sam Goodwin (Al Ruscio), whose granddaughter Beverly (Victoria Vanderkloot) was just thrown off the balcony of her high-rise apartment, the latest victim in a wave of killings with no apparent motive or connection. Nobody's happy to see Stoney back in the City of Angels, starting with his old boss Capt. Hoxley (Lincoln Kilpatrick), who warns him "You get involved in this investigation, I'll put you so far away they'll have to air-mail in light!" Also furious about his return is crime boss Ashley Maynard (Arlen Dean Snyder), who just served two years after being busted by Stoney, presumably for passing himself off as a feared criminal despite being named "Ashley Maynard." Most annoyed of all is Stoney's estranged wife Eddie (Joyce Ingalls, who left the business after this aside from a bit part as a nurse in 1998's LETHAL WEAPON 4, with her only other significant role being in 1978's PARADISE ALLEY, during which she and director/star Sylvester Stallone briefly became an item), a TV news reporter who's working the case and doesn't want Stoney meddling.
Of course, since he's a no-rules cop-turned-no-rules ex-cop, Stoney meddles and ruffles feathers everywhere he goes, even forming an unholy alliance with the nefarious Ashley Maynard, who agrees to leave Stoney alone and call his dogs off for two weeks in exchange for half of the reward money when Stoney nabs the killer, a mystery man played by Bud Ekins, who spent a lot of time in the '60s and '70s as Steve McQueen's regular stunt double. The body count rises and both Stoney and Eddie find their lives in danger while rekindling their romance (cue gratuitous Wings man-ass in a sequence where he's shot at while in a bathtub and then with Eddie in a ridiculous sex-in-a-living-room-hammock scene), and the key to the cracking the case may be wealthy and powerful self-help magnate Joshua Adams (Paul Shenar), a mysterious figure whose villainy is obvious the moment one sees he's played by Paul Shenar.
Also featuring a bit part by a pre-GOLDEN GIRLS Estelle Getty as a lead-footed NYC cabbie named "Gussie," DEADLY FORCE was directed by Paul Aaron, perhaps best known for the early Chuck Norris vehicle A FORCE OF ONE and the TV-movie remake of THE MIRACLE WORKER, both from 1979. Among the screenwriters was VICE SQUAD co-writer Robert Vincent O'Neil (THE BALTIMORE BULLET), who really carved a niche for himself during this period with time-capsule snapshots of early '80s L.A. sleaze, following DEADLY FORCE by writing and directing 1984's surprise "high school honor student by day, Hollywood hooker by night" hit ANGEL and its 1985 sequel AVENGING ANGEL. Despite adhering to every genre trope imaginable, DEADLY FORCE failed to establish Wings Hauser as a mainstream, multiplex action star, though he was never out of work thanks to the forthcoming straight-to-video explosion that would keep him busy through the 1990s. Looking at it now, DEADLY FORCE prefigures LETHAL WEAPON in a number of ways, starting with both films opening with a beautiful young woman taking an unwilling dive off of a high balcony. But with his disdain for department policy, his goofy, smart-ass eccentricities (he breaks into Maynard's house, makes small-talk with his senile mother, and eats popcorn and watches porn with Maynard's girlfriend before sarcastically tucking an irate Maynard into bed), his penchant for taking insane risks (there's some impressive stunt work here, with one wild car chase where Hauser and Snyder are, in most shots, right there in the vehicles), and the manic, hair-trigger intensity brought to the table by Hauser, Stoney Cooper is an obvious precursor to Mel Gibson's Martin Riggs. I somehow missed DEADLY FORCE back in the day, but I thoroughly enjoyed discovering it now, so even though the Blu-ray has no extras, props to Shout! Factory for making this forgotten, Cannon-esque gem available once again. It's just a shame that we were deprived of further Stoney Cooper adventures, a gift that would've never stopped giving.
DEADLY FORCE belatedly opening in Toledo, OH on 1/27/1984,
over six months after it began its theatrical rollout.
THE SIEGE OF FIREBASE GLORIA (Philippines/Australia - 1989)
Directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith. Written by William Nagle, Tony Johnston, Brian Trenchard-Smith and R. Lee Ermey. Cast: Wings Hauser, R. Lee Ermey, Albert Popwell, Robert Arevalo, Mark Neely, Gary Hershberger, Clyde R. Jones, Margi Gerard, Richard Kuhlman, John Calvin, Nick Nicholson, Michael Cruz, Henry Strzalkowski. (R, 99 mins)
Before it came back into circulation on MGM's HD cable channel, streaming services, and as an "MGM Limited Edition Collection" manufactured-on-demand DVD in recent years, Brian Trenchard-Smith's THE SIEGE OF FIREBASE GLORIA was a hard-to-find VHS obscurity going for exorbitant rates on eBay. It was a sought-after title not just for B-movie aficionados and cine-hipsters who embraced it after learning Quentin Tarantino was a huge fan, but also for Vietnam War veterans. Released in January 1989 by the short-lived Fries Entertainment, THE SIEGE OF FIREBASE GLORIA was one of many post-PLATOON Vietnam War dramas that saw a marked reduction in the "The war's not over till the last man comes home" side of Namsploitation, where the heroes of UNCOMMON VALOR (1983), MISSING IN ACTION (1984), and RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II (1985) went back to 'Nam to settle scores and take care of unfinished business. Instead, there was a shift to grittier fare like HAMBURGER HILL (1987), PLATOON LEADER (1988), and EYE OF THE EAGLE 3 (1989), throwbacks to the types of straightforward, formulaic, B-grade WWII and Korean War battle pictures that Sam Fuller made in the 1950s. FIREBASE GLORIA's trump card was the presence of R. Lee Ermey, a Vietnam vet and former Marine drill sergeant who found work as a Vietnam genre Hollywood technical advisor on films like THE BOYS IN COMPANY C (1978) and APOCALYPSE NOW (1979), where he can be seen as a helicopter pilot during the famous "Ride of the Valkyries" sequence. Ermey was hired by Stanley Kubrick to mentor actor Tim Colceri, who was cast as the brutal drill instructor Gunny Sgt. Hartman in FULL METAL JACKET (1987). Kubrick's instructions to Ermey were simple: "Lee, I want it real." What Kubrick realized in witnessing Ermey's training of Colceri was that he cast the wrong guy in the part and that Ermey should be playing Hartman. Kubrick, never known as the most sympathetic director to actors, felt bad enough about replacing Colceri that he gave the young actor the consolation prize of a small but memorable one-scene role as a trigger-happy doorgunner ("Get some!"). Ermey, meanwhile, was given wide latitude by Kubrick to improvise and actually wrote much of his own dialogue, creating one of the most memorable characters and some of the most quotable lines in cinema history in the film's harrowing opening 45-minute basic training segment (it's worth noting that Hartman's insults about "steers & queers" and "I will gouge out your eyes and skullfuck you!" were bellowed five years earlier by an Oscar-winning Louis Gossett, Jr. in AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN).
Ermey's FULL METAL JACKET success led to him being given the lead in THE SIEGE OF FIREBASE GLORIA, even though '80s B-movie icon Wings Hauser (VICE SQUAD) gets top billing. Like Kubrick, Trenchard-Smith gave Ermey a lot of wiggle room, allowing him to rewrite much of the script, which is credited to William Nagle and Tony Johnston (Trenchard-Smith and Ermey are credited with "additional dialogue"). Nagle wrote the novel The Odd Angry Shot, about Australian soldiers in Vietnam, and it was turned into the acclaimed 1979 film that may very well have the worst trailer ever. He also scripted the WWII courtroom drama DEATH OF A SOLDIER (1986) before working as an assistant director on 1990s straight-to-video fare like INDECENT BEHAVIOR II. It's hard telling how much of Nagle and Johnston's work made it into the finished film, but the result resonated with many Vietnam veterans who feel that THE SIEGE OF FIREBASE GLORIA is the most accurate cinematic depiction of the war. You can find that sentiment on message boards and IMDb user reviews, and I can even attest from my days at Blockbuster Video that this film was regularly cited as the most brutally realistic look at Vietnam that many of these vets had ever seen.
Now, as someone who's never served in the military, I can only approach THE SIEGE OF FIREBASE GLORIA from the perspective of a fan or a film critic. You can see it trying to be a little more than the typical Namsploitation offering. Its depictions of the savagery of war are unflinchingly grim and bloody, and the battle scenes have a relentless intensity to them. I suspect these are the bits of realism that the vets are talking about, along with paying briefly futile lip service to the idea that "The VC are soldiers, too," in the way it spends time with Viet Cong commander Cao Van (Robert Arevalo), who believes in respecting the courage of one's enemies. Other than that, the story and the characterizations roll straight off of the war movie assembly line. At the start of the Tet Offensive in 1968, Sgt. Maj. Hafner (Ermey) and his right-hand man DiNardo (Hauser) and their squad commandeer and fortify a ramshackle firebase populated by stoned, disillusioned burnouts and led by a C.O. (John Calvin), who sits at his desk nude while jerking off to nudie mags and getting high. Of course, the no-nonsense Hafner is outraged over such things as weed and long hair, as Ermey himself probably is, and proceeds to whip the men into shape using the same kind of speeches he gave in FULL METAL JACKET. Sure, it's entertaining hearing Ermey fire off quips like "We're gonna fortify this shithole and protect it like it's your daughter's cherry," or "It's time to sprinkle some shit in Charlie's rice," and another about how "there is no such thing as an atheist in a combat situation!" but when Ermey's not doing his Ermey schtick, FIREBASE GLORIA becomes so awash in cliches that it defeats itself. There's a little Vietnamese boy named "Pee Wee" (Michael Cruz), who becomes a surrogate son to battle-hardened DiNardo, who's still mourning the death of his own young son; there's Hafner having no time for emotional silliness like a female captain (Margi Gerard) who's in charge of the infirmary; there's wide-eyed, naive innocent Murphy (Mark Neely), who immediately goes off the deep end and starts thousand-yard-staring like he invented it as soon as the shit hits the fan when Cao Van's forces attack; there's the crazed, stoned photojournalist (Nick Nicholson as Dennis Hopper); and with several reminders that he only has 17 days left in his tour, is there any chance radio communications guy Shortwave (Clyde R. Jones) is making it out alive?
One of the few instances of Namsploitation doubling as Ozploitation, THE SIEGE OF FIREBASE GLORIA was a Filipino/Australian co-production that displayed the kind of grandiose action sequences that Trenchard-Smith was known for in his prior Australian exploitation films, which often showcased the death-defying stuntwork of perpetual Trenchard-Smith man-crush Grant Page (STUNT ROCK). Once it gets going, FIREBASE GLORIA is almost non-stop battle sequences, with some explosions that would make Antonio Margheriti envious. And that's really what this film is all about. It may have some scattered moments of lofty ambition, but it's really just a higher-end, Philippines-shot Namsploitation entry that's just made with more precision and care than, say, the Cirio H. Santiago joints of the same period, like BEHIND ENEMY LINES or EYE OF THE EAGLE (both 1987). Ermey is onboard to be R. Lee Ermey, but perhaps FIREBASE GLORIA's dramatic element would work better if Hauser's performance wasn't so terrible. Hauser is a legend in B-movie histrionics, but that approach doesn't adapt well to serious drama. His big emotional scene near the end, where he talks to Hafner about his dead son and how a drunken, post-funeral, three-week AWOL bender got him busted down to corporal should be DiNardo's big moment, but Hauser's bug-eyed over-emoting is just embarrassing and cartoonish, as is every line of dialogue spoken by Gary Hershberger, who turns up late in the film as Moran, an Army chopper pilot who lends the men some assistance. When Hafner gives Moran a list of necessary supplies, Moran quips "You want french fries with that?" Hershberger seems to have been told to act as much like Bill Paxton's Chet-from-WEIRD SCIENCE as possible, and he's so grating that you almost expect him to smirk "Cleanup, aisle 3!" after mowing down some VC. Speaking of ridiculous, don't miss the scene where an enraged Hafner yells at his men while carrying the severed heads of two slaughtered Marines. It's possibly the most batshit moment of R. Lee Ermey's career.
If one approaches THE SIEGE OF FIREBASE GLORIA as a B-grade actioner in the Namsploitation subgenre, it doesn't disappoint. It may occasionally try to go the extra klick quality-wise, but when it's all said and done, it's still the kind of movie that expects you to cheer and chant "U-S-A!" when DiNardo tortures an enemy soldier. That, coupled with Hafner/Ermey's almost John Wayne concepts of social conservatism (Hafner has bigger fish to fry than Moran getting a haircut and a shave), probably puts FIREBASE GLORIA more on the right-wing HANOI HILTON end of the political spectrum as far as these films are concerned. But it's all in the eye of the beholder: THE SIEGE OF FIREBASE GLORIA wasn't seen by many people in theaters, but became a word-of-mouth hit with both military vets and exploitation fans on video, and it's a film many of them have held near and dear in the 25 years since. In other words, it's the very definition of a cult classic.
