The Odd Angry Shot

I first saw THE ODD ANGRY SHOT in the early 1980s when my knowledge of the Vietnam war was very little and my knowledge of Australian involvement was zero . It also has the distinction of being - Apart from THE GREEN BERETS so that doesn`t count - the first feature film I saw to be set around the conflict of the Vietnam war which was fortunate because this low budget Aussie film doesn`t hold up very well compared to the big budget Hollywood productions of the 70s and 80s . For example the locations resemble the bush of Northern Australia rather than the jungles of Indo -China , that`s probably because this film was indeed filmed in Northern Australia , and the fact that Australia has such a small pool of actors means some of them are unconvincing as SAS soldiers , namely Graham Kennedy .

I wholeheartedly defend this film for not having massive battle scenes because that wasn`t actually the role of the Aussie SAS in Vietnam . Based in the province of Phouc Tuy about 70 kilometres South East of Saigon the regiment`s role was intelligence gathering , reconnaissance and identifying VC guerrillas in supposedly " friendly territory " , in other words their missions were totally different from the way the American military decided to fight the war ; ie as a conventional conflict . Though it should be pointed out THE ODD ANGRY SHOT goofs that several SAS soldiers died in the conflict , in reality the SAS lost their one and only trooper in a firefight in January 1967 .

Not to be totally negative the film makes the poignant and all too real statement at the end that instead of treating its former servicemen as heroes - Whatever the rights and wrongs of a war - no one will care because " They`re more interested in what`s happening on Coronation Street " . How true . How bitterly unfairly true