The Last Hunter is Italian director Antonio Margheriti's take on the Vietnam flick - and as you would expect, it goes straight for the jugular and removes all the soul searching stuff found in films like Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter and the result is...entertaining, but underwhelming. Any depth is replaced by an array of violence and bloodshed, and that means that the film entertains on the surface but doesn't do much more than that...although I can't condemn it too much since I'm not the biggest fan of the 'great' Vietnam movies anyway. The plot is just as flimsy as you would expect and we focus on an American soldier. He's been given a mission to go deep behind enemy lines and destroy a radio transmitter that is sending out demoralising messages to the American soldiers, telling them words to the effect of 'go home and give up fighting someone else's war'. He picks up some allies along the way and of course gets involved in more than his fair share of fighting.
The film stars David Warbeck who does well as the grizzled American soldier at the centre of the film. It's clear that he wasn't the most important thing as far as Antonio Margheriti was concerned, however, as he's far more interested in packing as much violence as possible into the film, and he does a good job with that; as shown by the many fight scenes. Every fight scene in the film is full on and very bloody; and the special effects are fairly realistic also, which adds to the credibility of the film. However, it all comes down to the fact that the film doesn't have much of a point. Of course sitting through the action is entertaining but there's no reason to really care for it and the film drags on numerous occasions as a result. It all boils down to an ill-advised and really rather silly twist at the end...but hey, I can't say I was expecting anything clever. Overall, The Last Hunter might be of interest to anyone who enjoys low Italian rip offs and/or war movies, but anyone hoping for a great Vietnam flick is in for a disappointment.
