Review of Troma's War (1988) by Arnaud L — 21 Feb 2009

It doesn't hold a candle to Toxic Avenger, so I'm somewhat surprised that Lloyd Kaufman considers this his best work. I suppose in some ways it may have to do with some director's inclinations to love their films that do poorly at the box office the best (such as Carpenter with The Thing and Coppola with The Conversation).

That said, it was entertaining enough. The action scenes could've been better though, and I was expecting it to be more bloody (considering, after all, that this is Troma, and their boast on the DVD cover that this film used more squibs than any besides The Wild Bunch or John Woo's stuff).

The only really interesting character was the Vietnam vet, who interestingly enough was a vet in real life (and served as the gun consultant of sorts for the film. Some of the characters were pretty annoying, like the blind girl (who, like the version of Sara from Toxie 2 & 3, who is also blind....) was quite shrill.

I also expected it to be more batshit insane, but I can hardly criticize the film on that front, because I can't think of any other film featuring an AIDS brigade.

Speaking of the AIDS brigade, I felt that the disturbing rape scenes were a tad out of place for a film that was supposed to be a comedy. I admire that they weren't afraid to make a film featuring a brigade of AIDS-infected soldiers whose job it was to rape women, but...it just didn't quite fit here.

It's not essential viewing like The Toxic Avenger, but it's not a bad way to spend an hour and 45 minutes.