Snake venom drinking, ex-Vietnam prisoner of war Sam Wood (Brent Huff of Cop Game, which I reviewed right here) spends his days… well, he seems to just sleep a lot and piss people off merely by existing… oh, and he looks like a Bayou Billy cosplayer, which given the difficulty of that game would go along way to adding towards the hostility leveled against him…
Anyway, Sam is hired by documentarian Maryline Kane (Mary Stavin) to head back to the camp he was brutally tortured in for a series of interviews in exchange for which he’ll be paid an ass-load of cash.
Once there Maryline’s crew is immediately attacked and killed by Vietnamese soldiers, and Sam finds out he was played like a chump and Maryline’s real goal is to rescue her military father who has become a P.O.W. as well… the same general that refused to rescue Wood’s comrades in ‘Nam. The promise of more money smooths that shit over right quick however…
Soon our hero is balls deep in explosive action territory and it will take every ounce of his grizzled machismo to find a way to successfully complete the mission at hand!
Born to Fight is a Rambosploitation masterpiece from the team that brought us the lion’s share of said genre. The End.
Okay, we’re not actually done yet… hold your damn applause…
What makes Born to Fight so much fun? Let’s start with the cast! Huff is absolute perfection as the smart-ass, charming, and most-importantly, psychotic Wood, and the chemistry he and co-star Stavin have is palpable.
Adding to the mix is an absolute ass-ton of explosive action as Wood becomes a one-man-army who can eliminate entire platoons and bases with an endless supply of bullets, rockets, and a dubbed-in “It can be done… can do” or two.
The music of Al Festa is up to the task at hand as well, and comes in three flavors; intro to Flash’s Theme by Queen, intro to Strut by Sheena Easton, and bombastic hero theme.
Damn, I haven’t even mentioned the screenplay courtesy of the usual team for these types of affairs; Claudio Fragasso and Rossella Drudi, that attempts to take whatever they did in Rambo: First Blood Part II and just amp that shit up until the knob falls right the fuck off, or one of my personal fav scenes where our hero screams out the names of his buddies left to die in the war… in slow motion as he unloads a giant rifle into a foe, and ends the list with ” …and all the others!”
While the feature is absolute fried gold, the commentary our friendly fiends at Severin have included in this Blu-ray release is one of the most hilarious, enjoyable listens I’ve had in what seems like forever as Huff and Stavin absolutely explode in uproarious, laugh-filled anecdotes of the film’s production. Seriously, it’s worth the price of admission on it’s own!
Also included are interviews with Fragasso (in which he reveals the surprising inspiration for the film among other tales of making the film come to life) and Drudi (who elaborates on the creation of the picture’s screenplay), and the film’s theatrical trailer.
Also included is an extended cut of the film which runs three minutes longer than the theatrical cut.
Bruno Mattei delivers another jungle-based action spectacular with Born to Fight, but there is plenty of humor and heart among the near-constant reign of bullets and fire, making this is one Rambosploitation flick that absolutely should not be missed!
