War Camp (1988)

War Camp (1988)- * * *

Directed by: Jett Espiritu

Starring: Rey Malonzo

In the jungles of Vietnam, a group of mercenaries is on a rescue mission to save some captive American prisoners. One of which, a guy named James Brook, may have secret plans to annihilate Hanoi with an atomic bomb. Led by Aviles (Malonzo), he leads his compatriots Jo Lin, Robert Jason, Fernando, and Singh Su through many, many machine gun fights and chases. Eventually they end up at the dreaded WAR CAMP, where prisoners are kept in cages and held captive by not one, but two evil baddies. Lem Jing is the evil guy with the oversized 80’s glasses, and Minh Dem is the evil guy who takes dramatic pauses in his speech, making him the Vietcong William Shatner. Will our heroes survive to shoot and stab another day?

The Vietnam War continues to rage in the Philippines in WAR CAMP, yet another addition to the waterfall of late 80’s jungle shoot-em-ups. If you like lots of machine-gun shooting amidst verdant, tree-filled locations, this is the movie for you. Lots of faceless guys in those conical rice-paddy hats get filled full of lead and fall into shallow pools of water. Strangely, there are no guard-tower falls on show, but there is a lengthy (and prerequisite) torture scene that apparently tries to outdo The Deer Hunter (1978) at its own game. Literally.

Here, arm wrestling takes an even more sinister turn than it did in Over The Top (1987), wherein the competitors’ wrists are each bound to a wire of some sort, and it’s attached to yet another machine gun, so when the loser goes down, it yanks the cord and he goes down permanently. It really takes all the joy out of the term wrist wrasslin'. A lot of time is spent in and around this device. Obviously, the filmmakers were really proud of it. On top of that, there are plenty of booby traps in the jungle, and we are informed one of them is called a “punji stick”. You learn something new every day.

The movie is clearly influenced by other “war camp” movies such as Missing In Action (1984), Missing in Action 2: The Beginning (1985), and P.O.W. The Escape (1986). But director Jett Espiritu, as cool as his name is, did not have the resources those comparatively bigger movies had. So here we get the rough film stock, choppy editing, and funny dubbing those “third-world”-style movies all have, but it is somewhat charming. They used what they had to the best of their ability, and you can see that. Rey Malonzo from Search For Vengeance (1984) is on board, so that’s something.

There’s next-to-nil character development, but in place of that, lots and lots of people get shot with a machine gun, or, barring that, stabbed, tortured, or beaten up. But it’s all in fairly good fun and the synthy score helps. That and the fact that it’s 84 minutes. So, if you just can’t get enough jungle-shootin’ action, War Camp can stand alongside others in that illustrious canon.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

The Contract (1999)

The Contract (1999)- *1\2

Directed by: K.C. Bascombe

Starring: Laurent Imbault, Johanna Black, Matthew Olver, Doug Richardson, and Billy Dee Williams

Luc (Imbault) and Hannah (Black) are professional assassins on the mean streets of Toronto, Canada. They always execute their CONTRACT killings with efficiency, but they get more than they bargained for when they enter the world of Senator Harmon (Billy Dee). Described as a “hardliner” by his critics, they don’t know how right they are – Harmon seemingly has no qualms about eliminating potential threats to his rise to power…permanently. When a conspiracy unravels that puts Hannah and her boyfriend James (Olver) in jeopardy, they go on the run and link up with their associate Ozzy (Richardson). After many trials and tribulations, the inevitable final confrontation comes between Hannah and Harmon. But will the ultimate CONTRACT be fulfilled?



Unfortunately, The Contract was a disappointment. There are many factors at work here that ultimately sink the movie, any one of which might not do so on its own, but here it’s a case of death by a thousand cuts. The whole thing is very Canadian, but it’s supposed to be set in the U.S., which is always a mistake. Just embrace your Canadian heritage and things always go better in the end. It was the late 90’s, which was a death time for DTV productions like this. It has a downmarket, low-budget feel. It’s a Tarantino Slog, as we call them, and the world just didn’t need another one of those, especially one of this puny stature that couldn’t even compete with the bigger and more well-known T-Slogs of the day.


Most of the action consists of “assassination shootings”, and the few fight scenes (such as the kitchen fight) have this silly slo-mo effect which doesn’t do anyone any favors. The climax makes very little sense, and that’s after a movie which doesn’t have powerful forward drive or verve, not to mention a well-thought-out or well-written plot that would involve viewers. There’s also a lot of soundalike music on the soundtrack, with songs or musical cues that by turns sound like Pearl Jam, Pink Floyd, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, The Dave Matthews Band, or Paula Cole/Meredith Brooks/Shawn Colvin or any number of Lilith Fair-style female singers at that time.


On the bright side, Billy Dee Williams is extremely charming, as ever, and he has a lot of screen presence and magnetism. The movie is hanging on by a thread as it is, without BDW it would be nothing. He did seem out of place here, however. Johanna Black brought a certain Nancy Kerriganesque charm to the proceedings. She did her best against impossible odds. A point of interest came up when Ozzy started talking about his record collection, saying that he has over 2,000 vinyl albums. After we perked up upon hearing this, the movie then went back down to its default position of being lame.

The Contract reminded us of a less-professional Killing Time (1998), but without the actual Portishead music. Instead it featured artists we’ve personally never heard of such as Juke Joint, Adam’s Curse, Vivian George, Shikasta, Heartbreak Hill, and Babelfish. They probably couldn’t afford the original hits by the original artists, we understand that. One of the songs does feature the lyrics “growing up in Canada makes you strong”, evidence of which cannot be found in this film. Of course it all ends in a Final Factory Fight, as so many movies do, but we as viewers simply don’t care about what we’ve just seen. To be fair though, this movie is significantly better than Conspiracy of Fear (1995). So, it’s good to keep perspective on things.

With better writing, tighter editing, More original dialogue, more focused direction, better music, and giving our heroes more goons to fight, The Contract would have been vastly better. Only the presence of Billy Dee Williams keeps things afloat…barely. The woman in the artwork doesn’t even appear to be Johanna Black. Sadly, we cannot recommend The Contract, except for Billy Dee Williams completists.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty