Strike Commando is a 1986 action/adventure movie that rips-off of several classic genre movies of the time including Stallone’s Rambo, Schwarzenegger’s Commando and Chuck Norris’s Missing in Action. The film is directed by the master of cheap and cheesy Italian rip-offs, Bruno Mattei, the man who gave the world such trashy classics as Zombie Creeping Flesh, Zombie 3, Hell of the Living Dead, Rats- Night of terror and nunsploitation masterpiece The Other Hell. 

In the wake of the classic actioners of the 80s previously mentioned there were a host of cheap rip-offs released, saturating the market with big dumb, violent films about Vietnam vets gone mad. Probably the best, and the worst at the same time was Strike Commando, a film so utterly terrible that it becomes a work of genius. This masterpiece of ‘Namsploitation’ ( I really do love this term) follows Sgt Mike  Ransom, ably played by Reb Brown. Ransom is a one-man army who makes Rambo look like a girl scout. He’s the toughest, no-nonsense action hero of them all.

After escaping from a POW camp our hero hooks up with a village of friendly Vietnamese locals who he agrees to rescue from the Vietcong. He also discovers the involvement of the Russians in the region, who, led by his evil nemesis Jakoda, played by Alex Vitale (Robot Jox, Urban Warriors and Land of Death) have been murdering members of the village that Ransom has befriended. Our hero goes after Jakoda and his army of Russian soldiers with an impressive arsenal of weapons at his disposal.

Strike Commando is just potty enough to work, with some absolutely glorious action sequences that put the films that it draws influence from to shame. The new Blu-ray from Severin features two separate cuts of the movie, the theatrical and the extended, which have been remastered in pristine 2k. The disc features very few bonus materials, but you do get interviews with screenwriter Claudio Fragasso, and co-writer Rossella Drudi, an in-production promo and a trailer. If you enjoy a classic juicy slab of 80s action, then look no further than this cheesy ‘Namsploitation’ masterpiece.