Customer Reviews

Opposing Force [VHS]

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The concept is good: a fictionalized look at an advanced survival school. Skerrit is an almost washed up pilot who needs the school for his career advancement, so he signs up for a cycle of physical and mental abuse to get ahead. This abuse is delivered in course by a cast of seconds, with Anthony Zerba playing a screw loose commander left too long in the tropical sun. Fly in the ointment is a woman is also accepted into the school, and spends several scenes stripping on command in some teenager's wet dream of a POW camp. Long story short, she gets raped- like no one sees it coming- and then all hell breaks loose, and the "prisoners" take on what seems to be an entire Infantry regiment. First thirty minutes or so are watchable, the rest tired and predicatable.

OPPOSING FORCE is a typical Filippino quickie (and I don't mean at some Manila brothel!).

Speaking of Filippinos, what of the innocuous native flunky that demented Capt. Becker (Anthony Zerbe) describes as being a one-time battalion commander? This kid doesn't appear capable of leading a cub scout troop, let alone real soldiers.

Of course the story is completely ludicrous: A jungle survival school that obviously copped its lesson plan from Buchenwald. While American soldiers bellow at, slap and kick around other imprisoned Americans, the viewer is led to wonder: WHY? Not: "why are those men being abused?," but rather: "why abuse my own sensibilities by watching this stuff?"

Lt. Casey (Lisa Eichhorn with a wedge-cut bleach blonde perm) manages to set the women's movement back a few years. When she cradles that machine gun and growls that it's time for three to stand and fight against twenty and a copter, John Rambo doesn't exactly come to mind. The 'B' word... maybe.


As of 3/09, "Opposing Force" was not available on DVD.

Related item:
In THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY (1982), the Philippine capital Manila stands in as Jakarta, Indonesia. Stars Mel Gibson. (VHS) (DVD)


Parenthetical number preceding title is a 10 to 10 viewer poll rating found at a film resource website.

(5.3) Opposing Force (1986) - Tom Skerritt/Lisa Eichhorn/Anthony Zerbe/Richard Roundtree/John Considine

SUSPENSEFUL PERFORMACE OF ALL ACTORS WAS UNBELIEVABLE
HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR THIS A LONG TIME ONLY SAW IT ONCE BUT NEVER FORGOT IT. JUST LIKE DEER HUNTER SOME THAT YOU CAN'T BELIEVE CAN HAPPEN