The Siege of Firebase Gloria (1989)

Once Platoon was released in 1986, a whole slew of Vietnam films came out in the late 80′s and into the early 90′s. While some are now considered classics such as Platoon, Full Metal Jacket and Good Morning, Vietnam there were some that were done for very low budgets that didn’t find much of an audience like Platoon Leader and the short lived TV show Tour of Duty. The Siege of Firebase Gloria falls in the later category but that isn’t to say the film is bad. In fact, I really liked the film and had a ball watching it but it was obvious that this war film wasn’t going for politics or drama, it was going for straight up action and entertainment. This shouldn’t be a shock since it was directed by Ozploitation master Brian Trenchard-Smith (Escape 2000, Dead End Drive-In).

From the very opening, The Siege of Firebase Gloria starts off with a bang. Major Hafner (R. Lee Ermey) leads his recon patrol into a peaceful village where they had been months ago to find that the entire village has been slaughtered. With severed heads on posts and a pile of dead children, the Cong mean business (and so does Trenchard-Smith who doesn’t shy away from the red stuff) and they don’t like any villages to help out the Americans in any way. When Hafner’s right hand man Di Nardo (the underrated Wings Hauser) finds one surviving child, he takes the little boy under his wing and treats him like his own child. Di Nardo is slowly losing it and due to the death of his own child, he must make amends for the child he lost.

- Read the full review at UnRatedFilm.com