Violent Zone (1989) User Reviews

To Be Avoided

[rsoonsa · 1/10 · 19 December 2004]

This preposterous movie is filmed upon a Philippine island, the opening scene occurring in summer of 1945, as the Pacific Theatre of operations during World War II is nearly at an end, then moves forward to the present, again upon the island, where is gathered a motley group of mercenaries for an assignment that the scenario never actually reveals, but is ostensibly a mission organized by a wealthy man to locate his long-lost son reported to be in the hands of Vietnamese as a latter-day prisoner of war at some other place entirely. This all seems to be a trifle shy of logic, but it rapidly becomes worse as each mercenary is given a million dollars to accomplish something that is never revealed and there is upon the island an evil person (or persons) engaged in an attempt to kill the visitors (each of whom has been selected for a never defined specialty), although we can expect none too soon in the minds of viewers who will be hungry for any hint as to what is actually taking place upon the screen. The script, direction, and production values are extraordinarily poor, with possibly the most noteworthy scene being that during which a villain nears a cave that serves as sanctuary to four people and, after yanking the detonation pin from a grenade, he delivers a threatening and lengthy address to the beleaguered quartet, three of whom, including two women, slowly push a massive granite statue of Buddha that would appear to weigh three tons or more across the floor of the cave so that the torpid grenade will bounce from it, and that it does, rolling back and finally exploding at the feet of its thrower, who is therewith flung through the air to his apparent demise; but no matter, he soon pops up, sound of body and clothing, to reenter the fray, and this is but a small sample of the imbecility that never quite reaches a zenith in this dreadful piece.

Jungle slog.

[tarbosh22000 · 2/10 · 6 June 2013]

Charles "Daddy" Townsend (DeLeon) is an ultra-rich businessman so he decides to assemble a team of people with various strengths, and pay them each a lot of money to rescue his missing son. The island they're all located on was the site of "one of the bloodiest massacres of World War II" back in 1945. It was then that a Japanese soldier and an American soldier vowed revenge on each other. Steve Ryker (Douglas) is the trustworthy Chicago cop, Norman McKloskey and Linda Blomberg (Hayward and Killion, respectively) are journalists meant to make a record of the events, and those are just some of the characters who get thrown into this situation - and then things go haywire. Will anyone escape the island alive? Will they escape the VIOLENT ZONE? We expected Violent Zone to be an 80's Vietnam slog, but it's not. It's still a jungle/mercenary slog, but it doesn't have much to do with 'Nam, except for the fact that some of the mercs are 'Nam vets. It doesn't factor into the plot too much. But it doesn't really matter, as the "assemble a team" movie was done much better in past years, the most shining example being Kill Squad. We should have been wary about the name John Garwood, because we weren't exactly fans of A Taste of Hell (1973), but we decided to give him another chance. Well...despite a couple of decent moments (we really enjoyed the guy who looked like David Crosby, but we don't know his name) Violent Zone is a dud. It's not very engaging, and its level of dumbness was just too high. A lot of times dumb can be good, but here, without too many other redeeming factors, it's not.

We also wanted to see Chard again after The Killing Game (1988), and he puts in one of the best performances here. Coincidentally (?) enough, Cynthia Killion was also in The Killing Game. Naturally, Townsend, as the mastermind who assembles the team, only selects these people because "they're the best", a time-honored cliché we all know and love. It was interesting that the main hero, Steve Ryker, was played not by some young punk, but by a middle-aged man who looks like Ned Beatty. Douglas, the guy who played him, never did any other movies. Perhaps he felt Violent Zone could never be topped. Nevertheless, he does have a T-shirt that says "Have You Hugged A Bad Guy Today?", so maybe he was hired for his big heart.

Whether for good or for bad, Violent Zone is just another movie shot in the Philippines that came out in 1989. Plotwise, it loses a lot of steam towards the middle and doesn't really recover it. Because 1989 was a golden year for VHS product in video stores, it did receive a VHS release. But the DVD is one of those one dollar jobs without even a menu. Despite its eye-catching title, Violent Zone is really for only the most die-hard completists of the jungle slog genre.

Accept it for what it is and just enjoy it

[ogmious99 · 6/10 · 17 February 2010]

I recently rented this film and it is exactly what it purports to be. It is an action war movie about a group who is hired to go to an island to rescue the son of an extremely wealthy man. It is not a huge budget movie like say 'Apocalypse Now' so it doesn't have gigantic napalm explosions and hundreds of helicopters making an assault on a beach. But it does have plenty of action, a good story with believable actors and it is shot in a beautiful location, apparently in The Philippines. I have read the review that somebody has put up and I don't know what his problem is. Maybe he's an actor who auditioned for a part in this and didn't get it so he's angry with the Director because it sounds kind of personal. All I can say is that I rented it, I watched it and I enjoyed it.

Film is not that bad

[Rustyolmstead7 · 7/10 · 7 January 2015]

I am the guy who the reviewer said looked like David Crosby. Thanks for the nice comments. Willie Olmstead like a previous reviewer said, you have to watch this film and accept for what it is. Have fun. It was made on a small budget by an experienced director. The actors did not receive large pay checks but had an all expense paid trip to the Philippines and got to work with some top notch Filipino filmmakers and actors including Conrad Poe and Joonie Gamboa. Poe was the brother of Filipino legend Fernando Poe Jr. so, enjoy the film, it's not Gone with the Wind. It's just a fun film and a mystery with a group of actors and crew who enjoy their work and it shows. Even though, it was a few years ago, it is as good an action film that you see today.

Above average B war picture

[lor_ · 11 April 2023]

My review was written in June 1989 after watching the movie on South Gate Entertainment video cassette.

"Violent Zone" is an above-average war picture, focusing on some clever twists and turns in a 40-years-later plotline. It's a direct-to-video U. S. release for new South Gate banner John Jay Douglas, who resembles Alan Hale Jr., plays a vet summoned by rich guy Christopher Weeks for a special mission 43 years after he fought the Japanese on Kao Teng Island. Pic follows he routine caper format of rounding up the team and training them to go in to rescue Weeks' son from a commie prison camp he's been imprisoned in since 1974.

Twist is that the group never leaves their base island, caught in a battle for survival against an unseen enemy. Is it the Japanese or the CIA? Several climactic revelations come as surprises in John Bushelman and David Pritchard's script.

John Garwood directs efficiently on Philippine locations.