The American Ninja, Michael Dudikoff, is back, although not as a ninja in this weak made-for-TV action film. Instead, he plays an ex-Marine hired by a wealthy businessman to rescue his kidnapped daughter from Vietnamese bandits. Vietnam films were pretty played out by the time this films was made, so I'm not quite sure why this was a story that needed to be told, especially since essentially same story was told much better in the 1983 John Milius produced "Uncommon Valor" (which incidentally Dudikoff had a brief non-speaking role). Dudikoff assembles his own Dirty Dozen out of a bunch of criminals and reprobates to carry out their predictable and dull mission. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, an actor too good for this tripe, does as much as he can with his ridiculous villain role as the bandit leader. Overall, this is a pretty low rent Vietnam themed action film that's about 10 years too late.

I just can't find the words... Reading the title can make you understand already what type of a movie it is. And yes, it's a comedy. Really! Nobody can make a serious flick like that, the action sequences we're more realistic in "Hot shots"(I'm not being ironical) I'll just concentrate on the military point of view.

A) the main character is supposed to be a bad-ass retired major. What kind of a leader would take into his team a psychopathic woman, a black serial killer/rapist,a skinhead, a Mexican gang member, a black gang member and some guy with who's martial arts he was just impressed with. What the hell was the criteria that he chose them for? He was not able to predict that there might be a few problems in the team? Rapist vs girl; skinhead vs blacks&Mexican; black vs Mexican etc.

B) why are the Americans using an AK-47 and the Vietnamese M-16's?(using an AK-47 would be logical if you would want to use the enemy's ammo, but its kind of a fail if they're using a different caliber weapon) + where did the Vietnamese get Humvees and Huey's and M60's and M72's? Vietnam war leftovers? :S

C) if the major wants 6 people in his team, I think he could be able to find 6 ex-soldiers in a prison, no? A 40 year old veteran would for sure be a better choice than a guy who doesn't even know how to use a gun. D) the major trained them to be soldiers in 1 day. impressive!

E) well actually you can see the results in the entire movie, they don't have the best shooting techniques in the world :D the Mexican runs around the forest with 2 pistols, shooting berserk; the black guy shoots half the time an M4 from 1 hand and kills a lot of Vietnamese... again - just impressive. Oh yeah, if a helicopter arrives, obviously the best technique is that everybody takes their gun in one hand and shoots in the air.

F) blood. incredible how much blood a skinhead can lose before falling down. any normal person would be in shock/unconscious from this huge blood loss, but not this guy, he can run at the same time and sometimes shoot back(PS! i loved his swastika tattoo :D some freehand drawing with black permanent marker)

I'm too tired to think about this movie any more. just stay away from it, i think the writer was drunk/stoned and wrote it in 1 night. i enjoyed "mega shark vs giant octopus" 10x more.

SOLDIER BOYZ is the kind of derivative B-movie action I enjoy watching once in a while, although I think constant exposure to these films would drive me insane. This one is a low budget, updated version of THE DIRTY DOZEN, with a youthful cast and a plot that heavily relies on RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II for its thrills and spills. This is dumb, even lunkheaded stuff, never plausible for a second: the film never explores how or why the prisoners are going on the mission or for what reason. They just kind of head off and do their stuff in a series of explosive set-pieces that make fine use of bloody squib hits to up the ante of violence.

Leading this shames is '80s action man Michael Dudikoff. He's pretty unnoticeable here in the ensemble cast, and I kind of spotted that he looks a lot older than when I saw him last, and that was it. The young cast is a mixed-up group of Hispanics, tough black guys, and the token warrior woman thrown in for good measure. Character evolution is completely clichéd, with the bad guys turning good, and you can predict pretty much everything that happens. Nevertheless, I liked the drama they wrung out of the story, with Channon Roe's Neo-Nazi character taking top honours as the most entertaining in the film. A subdued Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa hangs around on the sidelines as the chief villain and does a little boo-hiss stuff.

I didn't care much for the climax, which over relies on tons of explosions to finish things off, but there is a fun if obvious twist later on. Elsewhere the action is well delivered in a kind of '80s bombastic fashion, but there's too much silliness in the way the guys fight. Not only do we have people shooting from the hip and using AK-47s one-handed, but one guy has watched too many John Woo films and runs around with his pistols tilted on their sides at all times. It just looks stupid. Aside from this and the inane title, SOLDIER BOYZ is a passable B-thriller for those charitable enough to watch it.