James Glickenhaus finally gets to work with a decent budget and uses it to create a fairly nonsensical but engrossing adventure just the same. The film maintains a serious and important tone throughout with plenty of high stakes and tension but disappointingly doesn't do much with it in the end. Mainly I find the film memorable due to the uncompromising and intense score by Tangerine Dream coupled with a lot of mean-spirited and violent setpieces toward the beginning of the film.
Ken Wahl reminds me of Italian actor Fabio Testi in that he's basically a blank slate but gets the job done. His delivery sounds a little like that mindless surfer bro who serves you a smoothie on the beach, but it gives his underwritten character a little bit of life. Supposedly his unit (also consisting of Steve James, Peter Hooten, Joaquim De Almeida, and some other random dude) are the crack, best of the best assigned to protect covert US interests. However their only real shared action is the bizarre, dreamlike opening of the film where they use no tactics whatsoever to foil and needlessly complicated terrorist attack. They're just standing there with Mac-10's drawn and spray and pray from the hip, killing squealing (yeah, squealing??) henchmen while burning as few calories as possible.
Little can be said about the film without mentioning the brilliant ski chase sequence, which may be the best ever filmed. Klaus Kinski shows up only to be completely wasted in one scene with a single inconsequential line, much like most of the other visiting character actors.
Overall THE SOLDIER feels more like an elaborate directing reel than an actual movie. I'd be much more apt to recommend it if the film's final act wasn't such a dreary letdown after all that build-up.
Ken Wahl reminds me of Italian actor Fabio Testi in that he's basically a blank slate but gets the job done. His delivery sounds a little like that mindless surfer bro who serves you a smoothie on the beach, but it gives his underwritten character a little bit of life. Supposedly his unit (also consisting of Steve James, Peter Hooten, Joaquim De Almeida, and some other random dude) are the crack, best of the best assigned to protect covert US interests. However their only real shared action is the bizarre, dreamlike opening of the film where they use no tactics whatsoever to foil and needlessly complicated terrorist attack. They're just standing there with Mac-10's drawn and spray and pray from the hip, killing squealing (yeah, squealing??) henchmen while burning as few calories as possible.
Little can be said about the film without mentioning the brilliant ski chase sequence, which may be the best ever filmed. Klaus Kinski shows up only to be completely wasted in one scene with a single inconsequential line, much like most of the other visiting character actors.
Overall THE SOLDIER feels more like an elaborate directing reel than an actual movie. I'd be much more apt to recommend it if the film's final act wasn't such a dreary letdown after all that build-up.