MACARONI COMBAT: Last Platoon (1988)

 

Macaroni combat is a war movie subgenre similar to spaghetti westerns. It is also called Euro War, Macaroni War, Spaghetti War, or Spaghetti Combat. They were made in the 1960s and 1970s. Most of the movies were low budget, B-movies made in Italy. Some were made in the Philippines. The actors are sometimes referred to as “Italian yankees”. They are characterized by extra violence and minimalist cinematography. Lots of stuff gets blown up.  Often they used archival footage, but they also made use of actual vehicles, although mostly they were not appropriate for the time period. Most are set in WWII and most of those involve commandos since the subgenre was inspired by movies like “The Dirty Dozen”. They had similar “who will survive?” plots. In most of the movies, a group of soldiers goes behind enemy lines. Usually, the men were a motley crew and there was dysfunction. Later, Vietnam became a popular setting. Most of the movies have a has-been American actor cashing in on their name like Lee Van Cleef and Guy Madison. Klaus Kinski is another actor known for his macaroni combat roles. With this post I am beginning a series on macaroni combat movies. You will see I am not impressed with the quality of the films.

               “Last Platoon” is an Italian war movie set in the Vietnam War.  It starts with a special effects shot through binoculars that reveals the fakest looking model truck you will ever see.  A squad led by Capt. Costas (Richard Hatch) attacks a Viet Cong camp to rescue a captive.  A sniper takes out a man in a guard tower and he takes a dive, naturally.  Not one, but two, bad guys are killed by thrown knives.  A squad member leaps through the roof of a thatched hut (at least that is different).  The awakened enemy are slaughtered with no bloodshed.  An enemy fakes surrender and blows up a naïve American.  “Bastards!” This will not be a revisionist Vietnam War movie.

               Costa returns to his Vietnamese girlfriend Mai-Ling, but the next morning she is gone, leaving a cryptic note.  Could he have been sleeping with the enemy?  When he returns to base, he is given another mission tailored to his rogue warrior talents.  Costa is our dime store Willard.  He has a mentor in Col. Abrams (Donald Pleasence) who looks the other way at his insubordination.  He wants Costa to take out a bridge that will shut down the Ho Chi Minh Trail and thus win the war.  He is given a “squad with balls”, the core of which is three “thieves and killers” straight from the stockade.  (This movie could not afford a dozen.)  They chopper in to a village in a scene that will only remind you of “Apocalypse Now” because I am telling you.  Let the squad culling begin.  The first goes to punji stakes.  The steadily dwindling unit is destined for more knife throwing, grenade pin pulling with teeth, and ridiculous explosions.  And Costa is headed for a reunion with Mai, of course.

               “Last Platoon” is not as terrible as you might think.  The dialogue is not laughable, although it would have been more entertaining if it was.  It does have the impressive acting talents of Hatch and Pleasence and they do not embarrass themselves.  The rest of the cast consists of the men who picked up their bags at the airport.  Surprisingly, it actually looks like a jungle setting.  That puts it ahead of many Vietnam War movies.  In fact, it is not the worst of the subgenre.  It is totally unrealistic, but what do you expect.  What you do expect is plenty of gratuitous and graphic violence.  It does not really deliver the guilty pleasures.  There are plenty of explosions and those four knife-thrown killings, but it falls short of campy combat porn.  I think they actually were trying to make a point about the futileness of war and how soldiers are like pawns.  Heavy stuff for a movie like this.

 

GRADE  =  D