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U.S.A.
/ 1988
Directors: Michael Hertz, Lloyd Kaufman
Starring
Carolyn Beauchamp
Sean Bowen
Jessica Dublin
Color / 105 Minutes / Not Rated
Format: DVD (R0 - NTSC)
Troma Team Video
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"Congratulations.
You are now
an honorary member of the Luftwaffe."
Schweinhart,
pushing
the gay guy
from a tower
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10
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I've
never been fans of Troma movies. They're vulgar and moronic,
jam-packed with the most lowbrow toilet humor imaginable. Even
worse, they're intentionally bad as opposed to filmmakers
like Ed Wood or Coleman Francis, who give it their darndest
and still come a cropper with often hilarious results. Even
so, I found muself enjoying Troma's War...
in spite of wanting to take a hot shower afterwards.
A disparate group of passengers aboard Troma
Airlines Flight 777 find themselves stranded on a tropical isle
(which looks like New Jersey), the only survivors of a plane
crash in the Caribbean. Immediate rescue seems unlikely. If
that weren't bad enough, the group soon discovers that the island
is a secret training base for an army of international terrorists
poised to infiltrate America. The terrorists kill and capture
a few of the passengers while the others scurry into the woods
and hide. Three of these a redneck army veteran, a British
spy, and an all-American college type start knocking off terrorists
and grabbing weapons.
In a long, crass sequence that dominates
the middle of the film the captured survivors are brutally interrogated
and tortured at one of the terrorist camps. A gay airline steward
is thrown off a tower to his death. A black priest has his tongue
torn out when he refuses to stop singing hymns; when he defiantly
persists
gargling blood instead of singing the Aryan terrorist officer
Schweinhart (Tod Johnson, doing positively the worst
fake German accent ever heard) shoots him in the head. An attractive
blonde rock band bimbo is gang-raped by AIDS-infected thugs
led by "Seρor Sida", a charming caballero who fastidiously
pops a huge pus-filled boil on his face during a close-up. (Supposedly
the first AIDS "humor" ever in the movies, it's the
moment when Troma's War truly goes
lower than the gutter if that's possible.) Before the
remaining captives can be killed, the other passengers attack
the camp to rescue them.
The remainder of the flick is just one continuous
firefight, with occasional pauses for dirty diaper jokes and
the requisite flashing of titties. A gazillion rounds
of ammo are expended and nearly as many squib packs. The movie
really gets to be fun during these NRA wet dreams... The hilariously
inept combat sequences come off like The A-Team on acid
with blood. (My favorite scene involves an ambushing terrorist
who inadvertently gives away his hiding place by loudly farting.)
Amidst the mindless mayhem I found myself actually rooting for
two of the characters: Parker, the redneck Vietnam vet (Rick
Washburn, a poor man's Warren Oates if ever there was one),
and Marshall, the blowgun-toting Brit who thinks he's James
Bond. (Marshall is played by Steven Crossley, who, in stark
contrast to everyone else in the cast, actually attempts to
act for some reason).
I could've done without the pig-snouted terrorist
colonel (simply retarded) or the heroic M-60 machinegun-toting
Jewish grandmother. (Gott im Himmel! This is a
Troma flick, ya know.) Still, it's a surprisingly enjoyable
piece of dung with which to down a couple of six packs or two
or three. It's probably the only Troma movie I'd ever
watch more than once besides maybe Fortress
Of Amerikkka. (Maybe.) And for Troma, that's saying
a lot.
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DVD "Director's Cut" of Troma's War
is presented fullframe. Trust me, you're not missing anything.
(No sweeping vistas or artfully staged shots in this one, folks.)
Picture and sound quality are okay. Unfortunately, the extras
consist of even more annoying "Troma Team" garbage than
is typically found on other Troma DVDs.
If I were guaranteed never to have to see Lloyd Kaufman's smirking
mug, I might just might give more Troma stuff a chance. 5/15/01 |
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