As noted in many a previous review, I always appreciate a good war flick, particularly those set during the Vietnam War (for some strange reason).
In conjunction, I also always appreciate a solid horror / science fiction movie as well.
Put those two together, and the potential for cinematic magic becomes a distinct possibility. Having said that, however, I will admit that when I first got wind of THIS Australian flick’s existence, something in my mind automatically dismissed it as being, most likely, another of those shameful no-budget ‘mockbuster’ direct-to-video / streaming – style titles that ‘studios’ like The Asylum like to shit out on a semi-regular basis, meant to capitalize on the popularity of the seemingly never-ending Jurassic Park / World franchise, a series that I’ve enjoyed over the years but will admit to having become rather indifferent to, after the last couple titles.
The funny thing is that as I continued my customary perusals of the comings and goings of Hollywood, this title seemed to keep popping up…and it was popping up in the form of oddly positive reviews / word-of-mouth, which did catch my attention and gave me a moment of pause on my unfair pre-judgement.
Over the last year, I’ve become accustomed to not having access to solid, dependable wifi, due largely to where I currently live (in a forest, just sayin), which has essentially killed off any streaming that I would normally tune in for.
So, as has ALWAYS been my way, I went the physical media route and found a decently priced Blu ray version of Primitive War from the UK (may the Cosmos bless my region-free player!). Ordinarily, I’m not the hugest fan of engaging in the ‘blind buy’ of titles destined for my ever-expanding disk collection, but I’d read enough to get the inkling that this one may be worth the coin, so I splurged a little.
And then, a couple weeks later, it arrived.
Primitive War takes place in Vietnam, 1968, and focuses on a Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol team known as Vulture Squad, led by True Blood’s Ryan Kwanten as team lead, ‘Sgt. Baker’. Following a successful raid on a Vietnamese POW camp, the capable special forces team is immediately re-tasked, much to their chagrin, for a clandestine helicopter insertion into a particular valley to search for a missing squad of Green Berets who the top brass had recently lost contact with.
Along the way they find themselves set upon by some particularly nasty wildlife, of the meat-eating dinosaur variety, as well as a squad of stalking Soviet operatives, and the terrain itself. Added to which, the top brass, led by Jeremy Piven’s shady and shouty ‘Col. Jericho’ have some nefarious plans of their own (don’t they always?).
And the LRRPs are caught in the middle!
As I’ve recently been focused on my most recent short story (now published on this site), the rhythm of my review output has shamefully stumbled. But now that Bazaar Rituals is out there for perusal, I wanted to make sure I kicked off the next round with something cool to feast the looking balls upon.
At least…that’s what I hoped I would get.
It was an unremarkable Sunday afternoon that I earmarked to FINALLY delve back into my ever-growing For Review stack of new disks (long live physical media!), and this one kinda jumped out at me…pun fully intended.
So, I had a hefty hoot of some delicious Pineapple Paradise, grabbed my trusty pad and the accompanying writing implement, and got to scribblin…
*hits PLAY*
Them scribbles-
–Right off the bat, Vietnam War trappings look good. As previously noted, I’m a sucker for a good Vietnam War flick which, on the face of it, doesn’t make tons of sense. I’m Canadian. But there’s just something about that controversial conflict that has long fascinated me, and as a result of MUCH reading and documentary study about it, I have a decent idea when something shown onscreen gets it ‘right’. Here, director Luke Sparke does an impressive job with his $7-8 million budget. I read that what he wanted to essentially do was have characters to step out of the amazing 1986 powerhouse Platoon…and straight into R-rated Jurassic Park. I’ll say it now…I think he succeeded.
-Too bad about the CG gunfire. Good sound design though. The limited budget had to show somewhere, it’s just too bad that it’s virtually ALL onscreen gunfire that betrays it. Now, in fairness, it’s often well hidden through the rapid-fire edits, but there are a couple questionable slow-mo shots that blatantly give it away that no gunpowder is popping, with no slide movement or shell ejection. Must’ve felt fucking ridiculous on set! And sure, there IS the whole ‘safety’ thing, but blank firing ammo, just like actual explosions, onset blood squids and real locations, goes a long way to render a movie timeless. But I get it.
Something I’ve long believed is that a low budget flick can do itself a lot of favours by concentrating more on a rich sound design than on composing the ‘perfect shot’, and the sound design was robust and in-your-face, which is awesome for a flick boasting this much carnage.
–Unexpected role from Piven. I suspect most people automatically think ‘comedian’ when actor Jeremy Piven comes up in every day conversation (teeny tragic role in Black Hawk Down aside), so it was interesting to see him kind of ‘stretching his legs’ as this borderline manic commanding officer, with the amazingly unlikely name of ‘Amadeus Jericho’, who gets more and more unhinged as the disastrous mission plays out…and probably not for the reasons you think. And like most of the famously ill-tempered commanding officer types of the classic action flicks of the 80’s/90’s…this motherfucker can yell! A lot. Almost comically so.
-Cool to see a LRRP team featured in the action. I previously alluded to having frequently dug into the history, politics, weapons and tactics used in the Vietnam War and I just happen to have in my modest Military History library several books written by a few of these real-life LRRP badass sons-o-bitches, like Bruce H. Norton, Gary A. Linderer, and Kenn Miller, to name a few. Seriously, the crazy deadly shit these 18, 19, 20 year old kids…let me repeat that…kids were pulling off deep behind enemy lines throughout Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia was as harrowing and dangerous as it gets. Say what you will about the war and the bullshit reasons for it, but this was some serious ADVENTURE shit these Rangers pulled off. I’ve only ever seen one other movie (that leaps to mind) prominently featuring a LRRP team and that was 1995’s Dead Presidents, and that was only for Act One. Here, this particular brand of special forces team took the spotlight.
-Nice attention to detail. Setting and dialogue. Again, Sparke’s desire to lovingly (and accurately) tap into that flavour left on Hollywood by such Vietnam War heavyweights like Apocalypse Now (1979), Platoon (1986), Full Metal Jacket (1987), Hamburger Hill (1987), along with Bat 21 (1988) and the renowned TV series Tour of Duty (1987-1990) shines through in lots of details, if you know what to look for.
-Some surprisingly solid acting. Naturalistic characterization. More of that attempt at authenticity…and I was here for it.
-Nope. Too loud for LRRPs. And here in lies the danger of knowing too much sometimes. A consistent theme running through the LRRP stories I’ve read is SILENCE. Often, these dudes would get in close enough to make out, just to stay as quiet as possible when whispering plans and orders back and forth. They would take half a day to move silently through 100 yards of jungle, never on trails, ever vigilant. Sadly, not here. These dudes are way too chatty. The sound design even has the echo of their voices ringing into the jungle background. Silence was a strict Ranger specialty…out of complete necessity. Their lives absolutely depended on it.
-They would be fucking deaf. Tunnel ambush. As the ragtag team moves through a series of seemingly deserted NVA tunnels, they’re suddenly stalked by a group of small raptor-like dinosaurs, who instantly attack. The Rangers counter with their weapons, mowing scores of the little scaly feathered bastards down. Deaf. Plain and simple. Deaf.
-Dino designs and CG are pretty decent. When taking into account the $7 or so million dollar budget, I think Sparke and Co. got their money’s worth.
-Interesting having the dinos NOT be in constant attack mode. This choice interested me, as you can see. In movies like this, there’s usually threats lurking around every corner, undoubtedly preying on our protagonists around the clock. Here, Sparke had his characters be smart enough to note the dinos behaviour and show signs of ad hoc adaptation by not freaking the fuck out every time an animal, as they are depicted, enters the frame. At one point, the squad seems to use a travelling herd of brontosaurus-type herbivores as cover in the open, which I thought was a nice touch. But don’t worry…these scenes don’t last long. Carnage inevitably ensues.
-Liking the gritty cinematography. Another area where this title takes inspiration from the above-mentioned Vietnam flicks and runs with it. Worked for me!
-Literally eaten alive. Not pretty. The Deinonychus seems to like slurping back intestines still at human body temperature, and pulsing, with the prior owner watching in agony as his innards are torn asunder, dug out and swallowed before his eyes. Yea, he doesn’t last long. But joyously gruesome shit! It’s like someone with access to money took that infamously dark Sam Neill (who sadly passed away the day I’m writing this. RIP, sir.) speech to that pudgy, weird-looking A Nightmare on Elm Street 5 kid at the dig site in Act One of Jurassic Park (1993), the one where he details what a trio of stalking raptors would do the kid’s body while he watched, and said Yep, THAT…I want to see.
And here it is!
-Wish they went with actual Russian and Vietnamese, not cartoonishly accented English. Even though this premise is totally a comic book concept…I wish they did away with some of the comic booky elements. If it could’ve been possible, I would’ve far preferred ‘bad guy’ characters speak in actual Russian and Vietnamese, unless the script calls for a deliberate language change-up. They got so much else right! But hey…whatever, man.
-Gnarly vicious deaths. Raptor kill. I’m sure you can imagine. I’m glad they just went for it.
-I dig the serious tone. It’s a Vietnam War movie…with dinosaurs. That. Right there.
–Tone reminds me of Dog Soldiers. 2002’s military-meets-werewolves cult horror flick, by writer / director Neil Marshall (The Descent) is a better movie than it has any right to be, given it’s also miniscule budget at the time of production and pure genre cheese premise. It also maintains a mostly serious tone, even in the face of attacking wolfmen and women, and in that respect, I found it sharing a certain genre stylistic and tonal kinship with Primitive War.
-The characters actually have character. I appreciated that most of the supporting characters are all given little tics and traits that flesh them out and aid in setting us up to not want them to die. Hell, they even give the team sniper some form of legitimate psychosis that every one else knows about and labours to assist with, as opposed to mocking and vilifying. It seemed like a brave choice that helped lend ‘flesh’ to the characters in the squad and, in my opinion, it largely worked.
–Nothing remarkable about the music. The Hans Zimmer-wannabe score is serviceable enough, but didn’t really stand out for most of the flick. Don’t have too much more to add to this one.
-People literally get ripped to pieces. They do. It was gory and great, sick fuck that I am.
–Piven losing his shit. ‘Jericho’ screams, yells and froths at the mouth while he loses his shit as things spiral out of control
–Zack Snyder would approve of the climax’s slow-motion insanity. When you see it, you’ll know exactly what I mean, for better or worse.
–Cool flick. B-movie concept done well. That kinda sums it up.
–Amusing end credits. Intercut with the final credits is a montage of what appeared to be actual Vietnam War footage melded with various examples of dinosaur life prominently featured as a sort of a suggestion of a ‘new reality’ that the recently announced sequel will most likely tackle.
And that…was Primitive War.
All in all, I’m happy to report that I got pretty much what I hoped I would get from Primitive War. It’s always fascinating to me when up n coming filmmakers show an iota of ambition and resourcefulness to make the most of their often-limited budgets in a most satisfying way, and that’s exactly what Luke Sparke and his crew pulled off with this impressive-looking war film / science fiction / horror hybrid.
The cast, mostly unknowns, with the notable exceptions of Ryan Kwanten, Jeremy Piven and Tricia Helfer, all bring it in to give what could’ve been mere one-dimensional dino fodder characters a little extra ‘flesh’, just enough that, as the story unravels, I found myself not wanting to see these guys n gals get chomped to screaming bloody pieces, like so many others that the 2 hour and 13 minute run-time touches.
And speaking of ‘chomped to screaming bloody pieces’, if the gore hound in you compels you to give PW a watch, I think you’ll also get your money’s worth. Jurassic Park, this one is NOT! Blood, guts and severed limbs abound, at times literally raining down!
To sum it up, if this type of concept is your jam, then I can easily recommend that you give Primitive War a shot. Personally, I can definitely see myself revisiting this one sometime down the road and I’m now eagerly looking forward to checking out the recently greenlit sequel, whenever it lands in my neck of the woods.
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