★ 2 / 10
The baffling third part of J. Christian Ingvordsen "Frank White Trilogy"
udar55
Frank White back working for the U. S. Government in the next sequel Comrades in Arms (1991). Now this is where my journey truly knocked me on my ass. First…
Frank White back working for the U. S. Government in the next sequel Comrades in Arms (1991). Now this is where my journey truly knocked me on my ass. First the plot particulars: White's new team botches a raid on a drug boss, so his CIA boss (Lance Henriksen!) demands he team up with some Soviet soldiers to take out the drug kingpin. Now for the mind bending. Once again, Lyle Alzado is top billed, so I got my hopes up that he would get more screen time. Now here is the crazy part - Alzado is General Orlof in Shocktroop (1988) and General Rada in this. Now for the craziest part - they just use the same footage of him from Shocktroop and dub it to make him a good guy this time. Now for the "what the hell is going on, did someone spike my drink" part - both Alzado scenes in each movie have him interacting with Steven Kaman as a Russian colonel. But...wait for it...he is a different Russian colonel dressed exactly the same. In Shocktroop he is a bad guy named Kotchev and in Comrades he is a good guy named Kotchov! Hell, Frank White KILLED Kotchev in Shocktroop! And this isn't redubbed footage as my OCD tendencies made me compare both scenes and they definitely shot new reaction shots of Kaman in this film. I guess it is a decent cost cutting matter, but also super-duper confusing (although to be fair to Ingvordsen, I bet he never expected anyone to power watch these three films in as many days). To add to the confusion, at one point White's CIA contact (Rick Washburn, again as a different mentor character) calls Frank White by the nickname "Bone" - the name of a character in other Ingvordsen films - several times. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? Things are so convoluted that even the actors from his troupe can't get things straight. To be fair, this one ups the action (naturally, the finale takes place at an empty warehouse), but who knew guys running around shooting stuff up could be so boring? As with the two previous films, it ends with White having his faith in the U. S. Government shaken which leads to...J. Christian Invordsen next starting a four-film quadrilogy called Airboss starring Frank Zagarino as Frank White. Looking at the IMDb credits for those films, there is a supporting character named Bone Conn. WHAT!? (insert Scanners exploding head GIF). Dang it, I'm out.
★ 6 / 10
Comrades In Arms is a reasonably good way to spend 90 minutes.
tarbosh22000
Khaleel (Weiner) is a terrorist, drug trafficker, and America-hater that's causing so much trouble, CIA director Reed (Henriksen), and his Russian associates…
Khaleel (Weiner) is a terrorist, drug trafficker, and America-hater that's causing so much trouble, CIA director Reed (Henriksen), and his Russian associates decide that taking him down is going to take the teamwork of the U.S. and the Russians. Recruited to execute the mission is Delta Force Commanding Officer Frank "Bone" White (Ingvordsen). Naturally, he's a cool dude with a bad attitude. His Russian counterpart is Spetsnaz officer Kotshov (Kaman). He's a ruthless, "Kill 'em All" type. But, for the good of both their countries, they must learn to get along and trust each other. With tensions rising, will they be able to take down Khaleel - before they kill each other first? Comrades In Arms is a military shoot-em-up with a pretty serious tone. It starts off with some hi-tech (for the time) green night vision and "thermo" vision (as in, when a character says, "we're switchin' to thermo!"), and plenty of technical combat lingo. Even though the concept of the U.S. and the Russians working together may remind you of Red Heat (1988), or maybe even Red Scorpion (1988), or possibly some other "Red" movies, the idea that, at this point in time, that they would both have to go into the field of combat together and rely on each other, is pretty forward-thinking. This is a war movie for a new kind of war - the war on terror - with all the technology that would entail, and Comrades In Arms probably will receive little to no credit for being one of the first (maybe the first?) movie to deal with this kind of war in the modern age.
But it still carries over some much-loved clichés from the past, seeing as how the Russians are gruff and emotionless, and Frank White (presumably not the same Frank White from King of New York (1990) from two years earlier), is called a "loose cannon" by his superiors. And it just wouldn't be complete without the climax in an abandoned warehouse. Similar to how Robert Z'Dar in The Final Sanction (1990) played a Russian, here Lyle Alzado does the same. Despite the fact that Alzado is top-billed, he's only in it for a scant few minutes. Remember, back in the 80's, Alzado was a name. A movie about cold war ideals with Lyle Alzado is certainly a product of its time, but as said earlier, it's more forward-thinking than you might think.
Steven Kaman co-wrote, co-produced, co-stars, and shot the movie, and probably had a grand old time with Ingvordsen, as they seemed to have given themselves the two leads in the movie. Kaman is responsible for utter dreck like Soul Of The Avenger (1997) and Total Force (1997), so luckily he did not direct this movie. Lance Henriksen gives gravity to his relatively small role, and he brightens the film. Keep in mind a big portion of this movie is mindless shooting, with plenty of machine guns and rocket launchers. So there is a bit of filler. Also it should be noted that Bone has a team of equally coolly-nicknamed warriors: Top Kick, Spook Show, Thor, Bigfoot, Ironman and Cowboy. They're fighting Khaleel and his guys in Colombia, and some of this may remind you of Delta Force 2 (1990). As far as John Weiner is concerned, who plays Khaleel, he does a great job of being evil. We don't know much about him, except for the fact that he was in Cyber Vengeance (1997). We'll have to keep an eye out for him.
In all, Comrades In Arms is a reasonably good way to spend 90 minutes.
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4.1/10
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J. Christian Ingvordsen director of classics Blue Vengeance and Cyber Vengeance!