Bullet Points: Brothers in Blood
Vietnam themed action movies were all the rage in the 1980s after the box office success of Sylvester Stallone’s First Blood and its sequels. At the height of their popularity, there were Rambo-esque movies being made all over the globe.
1987’s Brothers in Blood was one of the many Italian produced Vietnam themed action movies and it is the subject of this edition of Bullet Points…
- 1974: Brothers in Blood begins in the jungles of Vietnam. It is there that Steven “Steel” Logan (Bo Svenson, White Phantom) and his team of Danny, Mark and Travis are lying in wait as they prepare to blow up an enemy camp and capture the commanding officer. The mission is a success, until it is time to “get to the chopper” and that’s because the chopper is a few minutes late, which is not a good thing when you have some angry VC hot on your trail. Steel ends up getting hit on his way to the helicopter, as his men help him inside, Danny is also shot and hits the ground just as the helicopter begins to lift off… a wounded Danny screams for help as his friends ascend into the sky and Danny finds himself surrounded by enemy soldiers.
- 1986: Steel’s taxi cab driving wife picks him from a New York City police station, where Steel spent the night after a wild bar fight. Steel may be a decade removed from his tour of duty in Vietnam, but he is still fighting a war.. this one inside his head. Steel’s time in Vietnam haunts him, especially abandoning Danny DeMayo… but it seems Steel can right the Danny wrong after a news report tells of a terrorist organization that has kidnapped five American prisoners of war and are holding them hostage on a Caribbean island… When Steel’s wife hears the news, she immediately calls Steel’s old commanding officer and current CIA big wig, Major Briggs (Martin Balsam, Death Wish 3), knowing her husband is going to try and rescue Danny. The inclusion of Martin Balsam is one of the main reasons I decided to watch Brothers in Blood. So you can imagine my disappointment when I heard the words coming out of Major Briggs’ lips and it was not the distinct voice of Martin Balsam… I’m sure all the dialogue was dubbed, but for me it was most noticeable with the Briggs. I’ve been watching Martin Balsam movies for nearly forty years. Forty years no movie has ever done a thing like that to me… dub my Balsam. I have to admit I almost called it quits.
- Reunion Tour: Steel’s wife was 100% right… Steel left New York City and is tracking down his old Nam buddies looking to recruit them for the Danny DeMayo rescue mission. First up, Steel finds the guy who is really the cause of this whole mess, Richard Benton (Peter Hooten, The Soldier), the helicopter pilot. It’s a battle of the guilt trips, with Steel guilting Richard with what they did to Danny and Richard telling Steel he can’t leave his wife and their child who is dying of leukemia. Moments later Richard in fact leaves his now sobbing wife and kid that was still dying of leukemia… Steel and Richard then find the unforgettable Mark Bright (Nat Kelly Cole in his only acting role) running a casino. The casino business has Mark rubbing elbows with some underworld types and he definitely seems to be on the bad side of some of them. I say this because Mark is attacked in his own casino’s parking garage and it may have been all over for him if not for his old buddies Steel and Richard intervening… Conveniently the fourth member of the team, Travis (Werner Pochath, Striker), is in the same country that DeMayo and the other hostages are being held. Steel, Richard and Mark are all shocked to find out that Travis is now working as a drag queen. Travis was busted for smuggling drugs, he had his passport taken away from him and then forced to work as a drag queen at the request of the powerful General Julio Ortega, who seemingly requested other things from Travis on a weekly basis.
- Surprise: Travis’ weekly visit to General Ortega is used as the cover to get Travis, Steel, Richard and Mark into the compound… where they’ll use the General to get the supplies they are going to need for their rescue mission. Much like back in Nam, things start off well… then they realize the helicopter they “acquired” from General Ortega didn’t have much fuel in it, so they are going to be quite a ways off from the abandoned sugar refinery where the terrorists are holding Danny DeMayo and the other hostages… That becomes the first of many challenges for the Steel led rescue team which includes a huge plot twist involving the man they are attempting to rescue and the political machinations of Major Briggs and the local government.
The action in Brothers in Blood is pretty much front loaded and back loaded with much of the middle being light on excitement and heavy on dubbed voices. The dubbing is the worst part of the movie and takes Brothers in Blood down at least two notches.
There was some good in Brothers in Blood especially the unexpected twists and I have to say the copy I saw looked fantastic… but again I go back to the bush league dubbing and the second act problems, that would certainly be enough to sour even a die hard action fanatic.
If you haven’t soured on this post, scroll down and read some Bonus Bullet Points…
- AKA: Brothers in Blood is also known as Savage Attack.
- Reunited: Bo Svenson and Peter Hooten had previously worked together in 1978’s The Inglorious Bastards.
- Where Are They Now?: Brothers in Blood ends with still frames of several of the key players in the movie and gives an update about what happened to
