Touches You

Better Late Then Never

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

This is one of Bolls best movies. "That doesn't say a lot" thinks the haters. Yes, actually it does say a lot because Boll has made excellent movies like Seed, Stoic, Postal, Far Cry, Rampage, Max Schmeling, Darfur and Assault on Wall Street. Boll is one of our times most unappreciated and underrated directors. Just because he made movies like Bloodrayne and In the name of the king, people can't look past it and enjoy his other movies..like Tunnel Rats. Tunnel Rats is a far cry (pun intended) from a movie like Bloodrayne. Yet, I'm guessing a lot of people will give it a 1-rating just because it's Boll (probably without even having watched it). I can't believe the low imdb-rating...4,6 as I'm writing. So I give it 10, just to even it up a little.I would definitely give this movie a hight rating...at least 7/10. I think this is a great movie. It offers a completely different movie experience than Bolls earlier video game adaptations. The movie is set during the Vietnam war, and follows the fate of a group of soldiers who are sent out to hunt and kill underground Viet Cong. But you should not go into this movie expecting a documentary style war movie. The movie is set during the Vietnam war, but don't expect every detail to be accurate. This is not that kind of movie. It can be viewed as a general war movie, depicting the futileness and dreariness of any war. Or it can also be watched as a horror movie, or as a "journey into darkness" type of drama movie, simply set in the context of the Vietnam war.This movie is all about atmosphere...about ambiance. Except for the first 20 min or so there is hardly any dialog...only a dreadful atmosphere. The cinematography is excellent, the musical score is dark and beautiful and sets the mood perfectly. This movie offers a dark and claustrophobic movie experience. Take a dash of Platoon, Thin red line, Cannibal Holocaust, John Rambo, Beneath Hill 60, Predator and you have some idea what to expect. Well written, well directed, well acted and well shot...this is another Boll gem to put on the top shelf of your movie collection.

Prolific German director Uwe Boll has become something of a spittoon for film-going audiences with his much-hated video game-based action and horror movies, such as House of the Dead (2003), Alone in the Dark (2005) and BloodRayne (2005). While the aforementioned movies range from atrocious to just below passable, his later non-game based films have earned some more positive comments too. I was skeptical about his Vietnam War tale Tunnel Rats when popping the DVD in the player last night, but in the end the atmospheric film proved out to be fairly enjoyable.The story is set in 1968 Vietnam where a platoon of American soldiers is clearing the underground tunnels that the Vietnamese troops use in their stealth missions and connections. The dark, narrow and frequently booby-trapped tunnels are anything but safe, but when a massive Viet Cong attack begins, life above the ground is just as cheap and bodies start piling up quicker than can be counted.Unlike many mindless actioners, Tunnel Rats begins rather slowly; the first third of the runtime is spent on getting to know the soldiers as they pass time during the day and night before their tunnel mission begins the next day. The hardened veterans and enthusiastic or frightened rookies don't feel particularly memorable or unique compared to other war movies, but some characters are at least somewhat worth caring about, such as Privates Verano and Porterson (Rocky Marquette and Garikayi Mutambirwa). However, I don't think the charm of the film is really in character drama anyway (indeed, according to Boll there was no script and the actors improvised their lines); the story works much more effectively once the action gets going because it manages to not feel like a generic carbon-copy of the Rambo series like I was worried it would.The claustrophobic tunnels are lit extremely scarcely with yellow hand-held lights that make the underground scenes feel very atmospheric even if (or because) it is sometimes difficult to see what exactly is happening on the screen. The cinematography in the scenes above the ground has a faded, washed-out look that makes the green jungle appear all the more miserable a place. Besides the visuals, the subdued score by Jessica de Rooij also supports the mood well, beginning as little more than a compilation of ominous tones but ultimately turning into a pleasantly low-key accompaniment for the battles that could have easily felt overtly banal with more bombastic music.The best scenes are saved for the last: the agonizing, nightmarish crawls through collapsing tunnels, the encounter with a frightened Vietnamese family hiding underground and the explosion-heavy fights in the Army base are all fairly suspenseful and done in a less cartoony way than could be expected judging from Boll's earlier efforts (that is not to say Tunnel Rats wouldn't present a fair share of gory violence though). The downbeat ending is left somewhat open but makes its point clear in an enjoyably laconic way.Although Tunnel Rats is not quite a masterpiece, it is a fairly well made war film and would surely have a higher user rating if Boll's name was not attached to it. Were the characters more memorable, the movie could have been even better, but I dare to recommend it to fans of the genre even as it is now. All in all, perhaps grudgingly it must be acknowledged that Uwe Boll actually can make a good film, even if a lot of people would prefer him to remain an easy target for mockery and sarcasm.

Uwe Boll, previously a purveyor of "torture porn", has suddenly decided to try his hand at a war movie. This one's titled 1968 Tunnel Rats, presumably because his viewing fans, (of which there are several in these pages), would then have some idea of when the Vietnam war occurred. The "story", such as it is, revolves around a platoon of American soldiers who are on a search and destroy mission. They uncover some Viet Cong underground tunnels in the jungle and, in the process of reconnoitering, many die horrible deaths. This is where Mr. Boll's previous film experience comes in handy, and thus the description of some viewers here as "intense". Actually it's simply poorly staged screen violence, the main attraction of Boll's previous film efforts, and there's little else that adds interest to the movie. One of the worst Vietnam war movies ever made.

I don't count myself among Uwe Boll's apologists. I think it's important I mention that before I start talking about "Tunnel rats". I find all his films utter crap, and the fact that he has found stardom among the geeks as "the world's worst film director" a sort of cosmic joke that only God, should he exist, and Boll himself might find funny.Then there's the occasional hint that he's not stupid. Like the sheer brilliance of one of his latest publicity stunts, boxing his critics, or his systematic criticism of Hollywood directors he finds as bad as he is. And even the latter has its own dose of lame-ness. Here's one director who doesn't claim he could make Hollywood blockbusters better than American directors, but just as badly as them.Anyway, I had some expectations for "Tunnel rats", expectations that I have seen fulfilled, as you may guess from the fact that this thread is on the "Good movies" board. The film is nothing like "Platoon", which I still think it's the best Vietnam movie made so far, but more like "The Siege of Firebase Gloria", "Hamburger Hill" or even "Platoon leader". That is, I expected a movie light on content and budget but competently made and gritty, and that's what I got."Tunnel rats" tells the story of an American unit deployed in the jungles of Vietnam, where they are ordered to explore and take out a vast network of tunnels build by the Vietcong. And that's it. It plays like a cross between "Firebase Gloria" and "Cube", because sooner or later most characters end up underground, fighting for their survival.The best I can say about "Tunnel rats", and the most accurate way to describe it, is to say it doesn't feel like an Uwe Boll movie. The production values are adequate, the music and cinematography are top notch and the acting is competent all around. The latter could have been even better, but the script doesn't exactly shine at character development. It wants all the characters to be underdeveloped, so you don't know who's going to die next, and acts accordingly.Even better, the camera-work is actually pretty good. Boll here finally gets rid of that terrible habit of his of trying to cram to many things into the same movie, and the tone and the approach remain consistent throughout the whole movie. For once, you can see him aiming for subtlety instead of blatant plagiarism and schlock. Yes, I was shocked too. Here Boll restraints the camera as much as he can, aiming (and achieving) a tense calm in the scenes set in the surface, and a harrowing, claustrophobic sensation whenever anybody enters the tunnels.Not all is that good, though. There are a few scenes depicting the V.C. fighters that carefully avoid taking sides, but which feel nevertheless a tad cliché, and a major action scene in the surface abandons the quietness of the previous action bits for a hand-held, rushed camera-work that feels like a major mistake.But still, this is a must see, specially for those who enjoyed the many Nam actioners of the VHS era. Considering how tightly paced it is, and how careful Boll has been this time not to screw this one up, it's unlikely he does anything better anytime soon. What the hell, this film may easily end up passing as his masterpiece.