Directed by Michele Massimo Tarantini (Massacre in Dinosaur Valley), La Via Dura AKA The Hard Way The Only Way is fairly typical of the Italian straight-to-video jungle warfare genre that clogged up the action section of most video rental stores in the 80s: starring a hunky lead whose name you may recognise if you're a fan of low-budget trash (in this case, Ator the Fighting Eagle star Miles O'Keefe), a cult actor in the role of baddie (Henry Silva here playing Capt. Wesson, ruthless leader of a private army), and numerous Italian extras as machine-gun fodder, it consists of endless unimaginative battle scenes in which lots of stuff gets blown up and loads of people get killed.
Channeling Clint Eastwood for his role (ie., talking out of the corner of his mouth between clenched teeth in a raspy voice), star O'Keefe plays Bull, leader of a three-man squad who find themselves fighting for their lives when their mission to assassinate a Bolivian drug lord goes disastrously wrong. Essentially one long chase through the jungle culminating in a showdown between Bull and Wesson at the enemy camp, the film delivers loads of repetitive fire-fights against Silva's henchmen, the obligatory scenes featuring quick sand, piranha, and jungle booby traps, a couple of unconvincing model helicopter crashes, and O'Keefe effortlessly demonstrating how a really wide-legged stance while firing a gun can make you impossible to kill.
4.5 out of 10, rounded up to 5 for IMDb.
Channeling Clint Eastwood for his role (ie., talking out of the corner of his mouth between clenched teeth in a raspy voice), star O'Keefe plays Bull, leader of a three-man squad who find themselves fighting for their lives when their mission to assassinate a Bolivian drug lord goes disastrously wrong. Essentially one long chase through the jungle culminating in a showdown between Bull and Wesson at the enemy camp, the film delivers loads of repetitive fire-fights against Silva's henchmen, the obligatory scenes featuring quick sand, piranha, and jungle booby traps, a couple of unconvincing model helicopter crashes, and O'Keefe effortlessly demonstrating how a really wide-legged stance while firing a gun can make you impossible to kill.
4.5 out of 10, rounded up to 5 for IMDb.