Bullet Points: Strike Commando 2
It is time to shine the spotlight on another of the free streaming apps available to movie lovers everywhere… I’m talking about Midnight Pulp!
Midnight Pulp has both a live streaming option as well as a robust on demand library of movies for all genre fans. In fact, this past weekend Midnight Pulp presented an All Action Memorial Day Weekend Marathon!
One of the new arrivals over at Midnight Pulp was a movie I have been meaning to check out, 1988’s Strike Commando 2…
- The Ultimate Debt: The movie starts off with a flashback dream sequence. The news that Major Vic Jenkins (Richard Harris, The Wild Geese) had been killed was obviously weighing heavy on the mind of Michael Ransom (Brent Huff, Nine Deaths of the Ninja) who dreams about his time in Vietnam and more specifically how his commanding officer, Vic Jenkins, saved his life. But a knock on the door is about to set the events of the movie in motion… it’s Ruby, another man who served under Major Jenkins with news that Vic Jenkins is very much alive and that the CIA (and a man named Peter Roeg specifically) knows where Jenkins is being held.
- The Job He Was Born For: Ransom storms into the office of Peter Roeg, who tries to pass himself off as a business man with his walls that feature a variety of multi-color graphs (the kind of multi-color graphs that could earn you an A even with a professor as tough as Dr. Barbay). But Ransom knows Roeg is CIA and gets physical with Roeg forcing him to spill the beans on Jenkins’ whereabouts. It seems like this was going to be a contender for quickest action movie rescue of all-time, but when Ransom gets to Major Jenkins… he finds out Jenkins was in custody, but it was PROTECTIVE custody to keep him safe from his enemies. But there is something else Ransom didn’t know, his boy Ruby set him up so a KGB baddie named Kramet could use Ransom to get to Jenkins. And get to him Kramet did as he abducts Jenkins and takes him to Burma, where Jenkins will be held at the compound of the powerful drug lord Huan To (Vic Diaz, Silk). And unless the CIA ponies up and delivers $10 million in diamonds, Jenkins will be handed over to the KGB, who could certainly do a lot with all that Jenkins knows from his CIA days. Who better to deliver a ransom payoff than a skilled soldier named Michael Ransom? This would be like if Charles Bronson’s character in Death Wish was named Paul Vigilante.
- Here Comes the Boom: Ransom (with the diamonds) makes his way to Burma and stops at a local watering hole where the bar’s proprietor, Rosanna Boom (Mary Stavin) is engaging in a drinking contest with one of the locals, first one that belches loses… Rosanna wins and it is time to close up shop, and that is when Kramet and four ninjas show up looking for the diamonds and if the Raiders of the Lost Ark vibes weren’t obvious with the drinking contest, the fight inside the bar with the bar on fire was as subtle as a shovel to the face. The bar (which should have been named Ravenwood’s) ends up blowing up (since Rosanna kept a box of dynamite under the bar), so now she finds herself $50,000 in the hole (she wasn’t insured?) and when she finds out that Ransom has $10 million in diamonds, she’s going to make sure she gets in on that action so Ransom finds out he has a partner!
- What a Fool Believes: Rosanna proves to be useful since she knows where Huan To’s compound is and she can lead Ransom there. Once they get there, Ransom leaves the diamonds with her and goes in to get Jenkins on his own and much like his first attempt to “rescue” Jenkins, things don’t turn out the way Ransom had planned… he finds out Jenkins has gone rogue and is actually working with Huan To! Jenkins offers Ransom a spot in the Jenkins/Huan To drug empire but Ransom declines obviously dejected to see a man he admired turn to the darkside and feeling like a fool for risking life and limb to come rescue him. But there’s still the business about the $10 million in diamonds… so Kramet is assigned to torture the information out of Ransom.
- All Aboard the Hooooooooo Train: When Ransom doesn’t return, Rosanna decides she is going to get inside Huan To’s compound to see what is going on… so she disguises herself as a prostitute to gain access. Rosanna is in a truck load of hookers (I did not think I would ever type the phrase “truck load of hookers” but here we are) and ends up being hand picked by Huan To to spend the night with him. Huan To finds the diamonds on Rosanna’s person, but before he could do anything about it Michael Ransom (who neutralized his Kramet problem) storms in, takes out Huan To and now Ransom and Rosanna have to shoot their way out of the compound… they manage to get to the truck that delivered the hookers and they take off… what Ransom does not know, is the ninjas and one of the Huan To’s right hand men were in the back of the truck! And this is where the “Desert Chase” scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark is blatantly copied and I gained an event greater appreciation for the music of John Williams after watching, since the music in Strike Commando 2 is closer to the opposite end of the spectrum. When the jungle chase reaches its conclusion, Rosanna decides to tell Ransom that the diamonds are still back at Huan To’s… that means they have to go back! Good thing for them the chase stopped so close to a helicopter and even better for the viewers because that meant more explosive action was on the way!
Carbon copying notable scenes from blockbuster movies is not going to win Strike Commando 2 any originality awards, but that decision set Strike Commando 2 apart from any of the other Rambo inspired movies I have seen in the past and it was a reminder that if you’re going to steal, steal from the best. Strike Commando 2 was a fun and easy watch and one I would highly recommend it to fans of the lower budget end of the action movie world.
And as always, I’d recommend reading these Bonus Bullet Points…
- Familiar Face: I could not help but recognize the real Jim Gaines of Black Fire and Final Reprisal fame. Gaines played Frank, the member of the security team that confronts Michael Ransom on Ransom’s first attempt to rescue Vic Jenkins.
- Directed By: Bruno Mattei directed Strike Commando 2 but was credited as Vincent Dawn. Mattei also directed Robowar and Double Target and the original Strike Commando.
- The Original: Speaking of the original, Reb Brown played Michael Ransom in Strike Commando. While watching the original is not mandatory viewing to enjoy Strike Commando 2, it is also available on Midnight Pulp if you are interested or if your OCD does not allow you to watch things out of order.
