Men of War

Commando adventure in which ex-Special Force mercenaries carry out a dangerous mission set in a Thai island . This action-packed picture concerns upon a bunch of commando-for-hire who is assigned by two businessmen as financial backers to obliterate a little group of natives (B.D. Wong , Charlotte Lewis , among them) at an island of Thailand . But the financiers hire another bunch as back-up , in case they run into problems . The commando is led by a tough, two-fisted mercenary (Dolph Lundgren) . He contacts an inmate (Tommy Lister) , a soldier-woman (Catherine Bell) and several more (Tom Wright, Don Harvey, Anthony John Denison, among others) . The adventure starts when the expert band of mercenaries disembarks on the coast and goes to deep inside the jungle to destroy the village . But they decide to defend rather than destroy the inhabitants of the far island . As they help out the jungle's natives against other mercenaries( Trevor Goddard , Aldo Sambrell). The mission meets unexpected turns and twists when they're betrayed by their financial backers . Meanwhile they find some caves in middle of jungle where encounter the valuable Guano or bat's crap .

This fast-paced film packs adventures , large-scale blow-up, routine plot , drama , and lots of action for the most part . Based on the interesting screenplay by prestigious John Sayles , a magnificent writer and director . Has some weak moments which break up the continuity of the movie but generally is a good story and well told . It results to be a graphical depiction of a team of professional mercenaries driven by nothing but quest for power and money , being commanded by Dolph Lundgren in one of the best roles . Large support cast formed by various actors who subsequently would get successful careers as Thomas Gibson (Criminal minds) , Catherine Bell(JAG) , Don Harvey , Kevin Thige , Trevor Goddard and several others . Cinematography by Rohn Schmidt is quite nicely , capturing the atmosphere of everywhere , from Thailand to a pretty cool jungle , furthermore some stirring images filmed with camera above the shoulder . Vibrant musical score fitting to action by Gerard Gouriet . The motion picture picture is well realized by Perry Lang who also plays a secondary role . This is his second and last movie -the first was ¨Little Vegas¨- subsequently Lang would direct numerous TV episodes as ¨ Millennium, Charmed, One tree hill , Everwood, Alias, Weeds. .¨

The film was made in the wake of ¨Mercenary sub-genre¨ as the classic ¨Wild Geese¨ by Andrew McLagen with Burton, Moore and Richard Harris and ¨Wild Geese II¨ , plus ¨Dogs of war¨ by John Irvin with Christopher Walken and recently ¨Tears of the sun ¨ with Bruce Willis and Monica Belucci and many others . Rating : 6,5 . Better than average. Well worth watching .