1968 TUNNEL RATS
(Germany, 2009, 92 Minutes)

When controversial German director Uwe Boll (HOUSE OF THE DEAD) first announced that he wanted to shoot an absolutely uncompromising, blunt and brutal movie about the cruelties of the Vietnam War, not just a few critics shook their heads in disbelief and predicted a major failure on all levels as they just couldn't imagine that infamous filmmaker, who once knocked out four internet bashers in a boxing challenge, to tackle such a serious subject with the needed amount of tactfulness and sincerity. And I gotta admit that even though I'm quite a huge fan of Uwe Boll's work, I personally wasn't 100% sure either what to expect from a project like this...

But now that I finally got my hands on a DVD of said film and ultimately got to see TUNNEL RATS (I missed the flick's short theatrical run here in Germany), I can say with a clear conscience that all those badmouths were once again a bit too fast with their criticism and concerns, cause apparently TUNNEL RATS turned out to be a pretty neat and well-done war movie, whose intensity and brutality will not leave you cold.

The film, which is set in the jungle of Cu Chi in 1968, tells the tragic story of a group of young American soldiers lead by the hard-boiled Sgt. Hollowborn (Michael Pare) who get orders to explore and secure a complex tunnel system which the Vietcong use to move through the jungle without being heard or seen. As soon the GIs step down into the dark and narrow corridors, however, they gotta learn the hard way that their enemy is way more accustomed to the unusual surroundings and skilled in the antics of guerrilla warfare than they are and hence it doesn't take long until one GI after the other has to face a merciless death and the defeat of the whole platoon seems almost inevitable...

In an early interview, Uwe Boll once said that one of his main intents for TUNNEL RATS was to show the absurdity and senselessness of war. Those guys who fight for their country with guns in their hands are all young, vital and full of hopes, dreams and ambitions. They got their whole lives ahead of them, but earlier than they've bargained for, they have to realize that in a game like this there's only losers but no winners. And when they're left to die all on their own a thousand miles away from home, they don't feel like heroes at all and pride and glory are about the last things that they think of...

The whole pointlessness of war is a constant and reoccurring theme in TUNNEL RATS and just like war itself ain't exactly fun and enjoyment, this film is also far from being your typical good time bubblegum blockbuster... TUNNEL RATS is very slow-paced, very raw, very dirty, very brutal, very pessimistic... and very honest. It surely lacks the epic proportions of "big" war movies such as PLATOON, APOCALYPSE NOW and FULL METAL JACKET, but it makes up for this with sheer intensity and a great dose of suspense; the latter being mainly the product of Uwe Boll making really good use of the perilous environment throughout the whole course of the movie. No matter whether the GIs are marching through the thick green hell of the jungle or crawling through the claustrophobic constriction of the tunnels, you can't help but feel a constant uneasiness and uncomfortableness, which ultimately finds its climax in a devastating and truly shattering finale that you won't soon forget.

Being more of light-hearted kind of guy, I have to say that I personally didn't enjoy TUNNEL RATS as much as I enjoyed Uwe Boll's action-packed, over-the-top no-brainers such as HOUSE OF THE DEAD, BLOODRAYNE and IN THE NAME OF THE KING, but this doesn't change the fact at all that TUNNEL RATS is still one of Uwe's most atmospheric and coherent films so far and definitely worth watching for all fans of unsparing war movies such as JOHN RAMBO and Co.

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3.5 out of 5