Worst military movies
Last week, we talked about the best war movies. Our friends at WeAreTheMighty list the seven “cheesiest” military movies. There are scads of them, probably many more than the enjoyable movies we talked about last week. My entry, though, for the worst military-themed movie of all time is “Flesh Wounds” starring Kevin Sorbo. If, for nothing else, the portrayal of their commanding officer;
The colonel wears his ribbons on his camouflage uniform inspiring phonies everywhere. It looks like his highest award is Berlin Army of Occupation Medal (and he’s wearing it upside down). If that’s not bad enough, he’s wearing Specialist rank (E-4) on his sleeves with colonel birds on his collar. That’s just one character, so if you haven’t seen it, count yourself lucky. It’s a good drinking game movie though.
Category: Who knows
The worst war movie of all time is a movie within a movie!
“Inglorious Bastards”
I thought “Tigerland” was painful to watch… not a big fan of Colin Farrell
Colin Farrell always plays badasses, but I am perfectly confident that, in the absence of his armed bodyguards, I could take him without difficulty.
Fucking pretty-boy pussy…
Gettysburg
The Killer Angels
Those two ACW movies drive me nuts. The only really good scene, to my mind, is from Gettysburg ( we jokingly call it “battle of the beards”) where Lee is surrounded by Confederate soldiers chanting his name and trying to deflect the blame from him for the failure of Pickett’s Charge. That actually happened and was remarked upon by many who saw it occur.
I actually thought Gods and Generals, by the same team, was much worse than Gettysburg.
No way, Gettysburg is an excellent movie. Sure the beards are a bit much, and Martin Sheen is in it, but it is a great movie.
Maybe I’m just feeling nostalgic in spite of my youth. I used to get free videos rentals every week for winning contests in junior high, and I would stop by the video store and rent Gettysburg every week. I single handedly wore out the tape over the course of my eighth grade year. I still watch it at the beginning of every July.
When I was a CW reenactor we used to refer to the movie Gods and Generals as GAG from its initials. None of us could stand it.
Another CW movie to consider for this list is ‘Wicked Spring’
My vote for worst movie: Basic with John Travolta… oddly, one of my favorite military movie also stars Travolta: The Generals Daughter
Basic is retarded but Samuel L Jackson sure chews his way through the scenery throughout…
I wrote better dialogue in 8th grade English.
Hahaha, I love Basic… but bad – yes, it is. Especially how they have a live round Ranger training exercise outside US borders.. .and headgear is absolutely optional from Beret, Patrol Cap, bandana or Helmet.
All of a sudden Samuel L Jackson shows up wearing a poncho like a toga… amazing.
WTF!
I have a possum in my yard in a tree with four feet snow around it. Is this global warming? I have never seen one in northern Vermont. My dogs are even more confused.
“The Marine.”
Ugh.
‘Nuff said.
I don’t think you can even count ‘The Marine’ as a war movie. I think they spent all of five minutes making sure you know that he was a combat Marine badass.
After that it was just all kinds of suck and fail.
Wind Talkers or Hurt Locker. As bad as Hurt Locker is, Wind Talkers was absolutely unholy bad. Nicholas Cage is probably the worst actor in the history of film
Hurt Locker made people think that if you are a SSG, you pretty much run the show… and when in country you can come and go as you will. No rules, no regulations. It was plainly insane.
With the promise of serious bodily harm, we weren’t even allowed to say those two words together in front of our EOD guys in Afghanistan.
Hell yeah. I saw Hurt Locker get all these awards, so I thought I was missing something… nope. Stupidest movie I saw that year. Had to be written by a poser or an E3.
I loved the movie for what it was, and found it very entertaining. EOD clearing buildings when the Infantry guys were right there was AWFUL. That and the ambush/sniper scene were the only time I felt the need to point out the obvious fakers in the movie to civies.
I think as far as a movie Hurt Locker is pretty entertaining… then again I liked Green Zone as far as a movie too.
OMG, how could I forget Wind Talkers (as in the case of Fire Birds, another Nic Cage classic?)
Not only was Wind Talkers an awful movie, but the whole premise of the movie was a vile slander on the Marine Corps.
Windtalkers earns extra credit for having Christian Slater get his head chopped off. For that alone, I give it a D-.
How was it a vile slander? IMO the REAL history displayed more bravery than the movie, but the movie at least attempted to display the bonds between the Code Talkers and their fellow Marines. It’s been almost 20 years since I read a book on the matter though.
Nic Cage has transcended all actors in his greatness and is the greatest Nic Cage that will ever Nic Cage!
http://www.reddit.com/r/onetruegod/
American Soldiers is the worst garbage film ive ever seen. Valley of Elah. Home of the Brave. Stop Loss. I’ll even throw The Hills Have Eyes 2 in there just for their complete idiocy in portraying soldiers. National Guard soldiers at that. And how about Over There. Worst tv show about OIF. Ranks right up there with Army Wives…
1. WindTalkers
2. Hurt Locker
3. The Marine (1,2, and 3)
4. The Rock
5. Platoon
y’know, there is a catalogue of movies that are almost great… they have a great beginning, maybe even are great partially through – then fall to crap near the end. “Apocalypse Now” definitely falls into that category – parts of it are freakin’ brilliant, then the last quarter of it made me regret watching any of it. As mentioned, “Boys in Company C” starts great and then dissolves into crap. “Stripes” – well, kindly there are some OK scenes early on. The list goes on and on…
There is a movie called ‘D-Wars’ or Dragon Wars… the best part in that movie is when the NY National Guards show up… they show up quick, but all old and fat with hideous mustaches… I love it.
Has nobody remembered the visual abortion of both the military and comedy called Hot Shots?
Yep. Part Deux: where they conducted clandestine operations between Iraq and Ahardplace. (smile)
Thought it was a hoot, actually, and enjoyed the hell out of it. They made no pretense of the film being anything but a goof/spoof – and it wasn’t.
Parodies don’t count because they’re not supposed to be in any way accurate. I actually liked Hot Shots.
Red Tails
Hurt Locker
Gods and Generals (The book series is fantastic, however)
Not sure it counts, but I’m adding this one because I’m still pissed about it – Starship Troopers. One of the greatest science fiction books ever written turned into a barely B-movie. At least it had Denise Richard’s boobs. Still, the movie adaptation was absolutely abysmal.
The coed shower scene makes up for a lot though…
GI Jane
Delta Force (1986)
Chuck Norris and Lee Marvin enter Beirut on a secret mission…and then proceed to kill terrorists with bazookas while offering up corny one-liners without any emotion.
Ya, that was the good review.
Don’t forget Megaforce (1982) Flying motorcycle’s.
D force was loosely based on actual events (the TWA hijacking) except for the ending. I actually liked the part where the German flight attendant refused to pull the Jewish passports out for the terrorists – also, apparently, based on real events.
Lest we forget…Commando with Ahnold, and Rae Dawn Chong (meow).
The epitome of terrible.
“Stick Around”.
Arnold rocks.
His movies sucked, but hey, its Arnold.
Top Gun, quite possibly the worst aviation movie, ever.
I give you Behind Enemy Lines. The SAM that miraculously had enough rocket propellant to keep going for what, 90 seconds and how many frickin’ turns?
And let’s not forget the end with Owen Wilson’s dash under fire, sliding on the ice while firing his M9 sideways like a street punk.
That was one of the few times I’ve actually taken a DVD out, tossed it in the bushes to fend for itself, and pissed on it for good measure.
In Top Gun, one learns:
Tomcats fly all day at full afterburner;
Have a missile capacity that rivals a Western six-shooter;
Alerion rolls are a viable defense tactic in front of a gattling gun;
And Real Naval Aviators have more patches than visible leather on their flight jackets.
http://youtu.be/NzY9a-WmE6o
We were thrown out of the theater for heckling and booing Top Gun.
Best part was that the pilots from my squadron were the ones who started it.
Maybe that DVD is what Bernath heard in his bushes.
Any movie that Oliver Stone has had part in making sucks. Not so much pure military movie, but the Verhooven trash that he slapped the name Starship Troopers on.
Apocalypse Now I don’t so much associate with a war movie than I do with a new take on the original story Hearts of Darkness. I kinda got interested in King Leopold’s entanglements in the Congo when I was in college.
I stumbled across Dead Can’t Dance, a cinematic masterpiece from 1997. Truly pathetic, makes as much sense as a Paul Wickre phone message. Check out the reviews and comments for this on IMDB.
Of course, I would be remiss in failing to mention the greatest movie ever, Terror In Beverly Hills. Terrorists come to Beverly Hills in order to kidnap the President’s daughter, using her as leverage to get some Palestinian terrorists released from an Isreali prison. For some reason, neither the FBI nor the Secret Service determined it worthy of showing up at the bad guys lair, the “Old Bean Factory”. Despite their best efforts, the Beverly Hills Poluce Department is incapable of handling the situation, so the President recalls to active duty a Medal Of Honor recipient Green Beret Marine (yes, Green Beret Marine) to set things right. The hero was played by Frank Stallone. And his characters name? HACK STONE! Now you know how Hack got his name, and his groove back.
I am confused now, do I give you a ‘HOOAH’ OR AN ‘OORAH’? All Marines are Green, I guess in today’s world of ‘If your not asked, tell all’ there might be a few with Beret’s.
If you have a spare 45 minutes, this site did a review of Terror In Beverly Hills, along with two other disasters.
http://redlettermedia.com/best-of-the-worst-ghetto-blaster-terror-in-beverly-hills-and-killing-american-style/?from_app=ios&ref_=ext_iosp_
You guys know nothing!
The Best Military Movie EVER was:
Top Gun!
Enjoy the clip!
http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DNzY9a-WmE6o&sa=U&ei=FZn3VPueMePdsAS7mICgCA&ved=0CA0QtwIwAA&usg=AFQjCNE4rUyzer4RZSzokTRsCTtXyUmz9A
I am on BB so fix it if broke!
Seek help, Master Chief, seek help. 😀
The Thin Red Line fucking sucks.
U-571 blows.
Crimson Tide is terrible.
Pearl Harbor has its own song dedicated to how unwatchable it is in Team America: World Police.
Windtalkers… has Nicolas Cage.
Oh PHUK ME….U-571 that is a real time killer. I would rather watch 2 Girls 1 Cup video in a loop while eating fudge packed with whole peanuts and washing it down with the spit cup overflows from a days worth of root canals.
That movie sucked ass bad ! I might have to go with this as worst ever. I would rather count moles on my mother in laws ass than go through that again, and you have no idea how big of a project that would be.
I´m in the Sandpit at the moment and they´re showing U-571 tonight on TV…I´m currently sharping a pencil t insert in my japs eye to distract me for the “event”
I thought surely someone would put up, “Go Tell The Spartans” …
I just watched that the other night. Awful.
Quote from movie at the end; ‘I’m going home charlie!”
I had to fast forward through the movie.
Apocalypse Now, it was a pretty good comedy about a dopers dream or something. I dont believe it was a portrayal of anything, except somebody’s drug induced fair tale of Hollywood’s depiction of the truth about Vietnam. Definitely at the bottom of the barrel for war movies.Its a good movie if you’re drunk!
The list of bad war movies is long and gets longer as Hollywood proves it only knows how to make preachy feel good about yourself and butterflies are free movies.
I don’t even know where to start with the bad ones, but I was very disappointed in Lone Survivor, I think I am burning out on Mark Wahlberg and the end of that movie sucked. They left a lot of stones unturned.
Does anyone know what ever did happen to the Pakistani man that did save his life? I read that 0 deliberately let the man twist in the wind and didn’t allow him to emigrate to the US, much the same he did for the Dr that turned in the info on UBL.
If true, it would be par for the course… As it were…
For good ones though Platoon Leader was a great movie or at least I thought so. Michael Dudikoff did a great job as the 1Lt. There were a lot of other great performances in it too.
For John Wayne movies I thought that In Harm’s Way was his best movie but hands down, the best war movie he made.
Platoon Leader is finally on Netflix, I have been looking for it for years and finally I was able to watch it again this weekend, twice !!!
Marc Singer is CPT Olivetti in Go Tell The Spartans…one of the all-time worst actors on the planet. But, I loved his ensemble work in ‘V’ and ‘V: The Final Battle”
Ya gotta watch “Beastmaster 2” some time. In between the first Beastmaster and 2 Singer’s voice changed some, and in the second one he sounds like he is channeling Johnny Carson imitating Julio Iglesias. Priceless! (The rest of the movie sucks)
A Time To Triumph. It’s was a made-for-TV movie about a housewife who becomes an Army helicopter pilot. It based on a true story that is impressive. But the movie was Gawd Awful.
I am going to need a little help. Way back in the day, a buddy of mine acquired a bootleg VHS tape on a no budget Vietnam flick, most likely (but not positive) it was an Italian Spaghetti Vietnam flick. They start out the movie conducting an air assault on a village, kill all the bad guys, but the CO leaves the senior enlisted guy and one of his troops behind. So, they manage to make their way back to friendly lines, but the troop lost his leg, so he kills himself because he used to be a football stud. So the Sgt Maj (maybe MSgt?) punches the CO in the day room, is court martialed and sentenced to some draconian term in a military prison, but manages to escape during a VC rocket attack. So, the CO redirects every service member in Vietnam to stop fighting Charlie, and kill the fugitive hero. The last scene has the Sgt Maj tying the CO to the hood of a jeep and using him as a shield as he crosses into (Laos? Cambodia? Bethesda Md?). I think that it was called Tornado, Toronado, or something like that. Anyone know whet the hell that I am talking about?
It was Toronado. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086459/
Yep, that is it. Terrible movie. Another one where you can actually feeling your ASVAB score falling as the film progresses.
I saw another video back in the late 1990s that I cannot recall (thankfully). It starts out in Somalia with a kid tossing a hand grenade into a helicopter (Apocolypse Now scene). Then fast forward to today (late 1990s), where the hero, a GySgt who “resigned his commission” survives as a street fighter (Rambo III), and then something happens. The bad guys (federal agents) try to capture/kill him (The Fugitives), and he has to outwit the bad guys.
With all of these crappy movies out there, I wonder who pays to make these movies, and who watches them? The only answers are they are made to launder drug money, and they send the movies overseas, as you don’t need to understand English to watch scenes of people blowing up.
Hack’s wife Rosetta was an extra in the ABC movie Heroes Of Desert Storm. And that gives her a Kevin Bacon Factor of 2 or 3.
Stealth was the worst military movie ever. If you watch it, you can see how posers think they look legit. BUT ALSO:
any movie that has Van Dam playing a Soldier
The entire first blood series, especially the one that has him fighting the whole soviet army. But you gotta love the SSG that was about three hundred pounds overweight and never buttoned his top
And whatever the name of that movie that had Jamie Fox portraying the Marine sniper. Looked like there was not even a military consultant on the set.
Yeah, yet Jessica Biel’s ass almost saved that movie.
Almost.
The Marine film with Jake Gyllenhaal and Jamie Foxx was Jarhead (2005). The crazy second bootcamp scene was stupid. After passing bootcamp and being selected for scout/sniper school, he has to attend a second bootcamp where a candidate freaks out during the barbed-wire crawl, stands up, and dies from a headshot.
There are only two good scenes in it.
The first is when the DI asks Swofford (Gyllenhaal) if his Marine Vietnam vet father ever talked about his service. Swofford says “Just once”. Then the DI says “Good; that means he’s not lying”.
The second is when they are advancing while a Huey overhead plays ‘Break on Through’ by The Doors and he shouts “That’s Vietnam music…Why can’t our generation have its own music?” (more true about the Gen Y guys in Iraq and Afghanistan rather than Gen X guy in Desert Storm – but still true).
The Expendables franchise
Anything with DOlf Lungren
Anything with Van Dam
ANything with Segal
Anything with any Martial Arts actor
You’re all wrong. The absolute worst war movie ever was “Casualties of War”. The only thought that was running through my head during this clown show was: “Who the fuck would give Alex P. Keaton and Jeff Spicoli rifles?”
@ MUSTANG 1LT:
“CASUALTIES OF WAR” is one of the three (03) Hollywood movies that I like to say comes closest to accurately depicting my own experience in that war.
The other two (02) are, “FORREST GUMP”, and, “GARDENS OF STONE”.
The worst war movie I have ever seen is Full Metal Jacket.
Full Metal Jacket was the best Vietnam war movie ever made in England.
@ SLICK GOODLIN:
England swings like a pendulum do.
Bobbies on bicycles, two by two.
Westminster Abbey,
The tower of Big Ben,
The rosy red cheeks of the little children.
Hit Record by Roger Miller.
Does anyone remember it?
gahDAMN, yer an old fart. Yes, along with King of the Road, Dang Me, Chug-a-lug, and a few others…as the priest says in “The Commitments”: “I have that particular album”
@ KEITH BODINE:
At the end of the movie, where they sing the, “MICKEY MOUSE CLUB SONG”, reminded me of my training at the United States Army Southeastern Signal School at Fort Gordon, Georgia, when we actually did sing that song when marching along in formation, but only if no officers were around.
But, I never saw or heard of any unit in Viet Nam doing that.
The other forbidden fun marching cadence was for when we marched past the WAC (i.e., Women’s Army Corps) barracks (and no officers were around), which was a parody of the Army’s normal, “Count Cadence, Delayed Cadence, Count Cadence, COUNT!”, which would conclude with the soldiers loudly growling like tigers, and it went like this:
Count Cadence, Delayed Cadence, WAC Cadence, COUNT!
(Done while stomping foot on pavement with each count)
One!
Two!
Three!
Four!
(Quicker) One! Two! Three! Four!
(Faster) One! Two! Three! Four!
One! Two! Three! Four!
WHEEEEEEE!
I forgot to include that “Count Cadence, Delayed Cadence, WAC Cadence, COUNT!” was done in a high pitched imitation of female voices.
The other farce war movie was the one with Charlie Sheen in Platoon
One of the more, “Why the fuck did we make a movie out of this again?” hunks of shit had to be Flight of The Intruder.
Great book. Should have stopped there.
I’m with Propsguy.
Anything with Van Damme, Segal, Dolf, Stallone and especially Michael J Fox as anything other than a skinny kid with a time machine is really, really bad.
On the good side though, Operation Petticoat with Tony Curtis and Cary Grant is a great movie just like another of his classics Father Goose.
“The Walking Dead”. At the end (I knew it was the end, because the bright lights woke me up), I looked around to find…..me and my bud, who also slept through it, were the only people there.
Sad to say, “Firebase Gloria”, also ranks with the stinkers.
Iron Eagle. ‘Nuff said.
I was wondering why nobody had mentioned Iron Eagle yet. I will say though, watching that movie as a young teen, I would always picture my self as Doug Masters taking on the Libyans. The movie is absolute junk, but not to teenage me.
“Starfighters”. Let’s make a movie about the F-104 Starfighter with absolutely no excitement whatsoever. After all, nothing screams “excitement!!” like TWO separate extended length refueling sequences! Except maybe the “gripping interpersonal drama”.
Ah, but the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version is a masterpiece! I believe it’s on Youtube if you want to check it out.
Still remember the graffiti on an Luftwaffe post south of Augsburg that asked “Was ist ein Dum-Dum geschosse? Zwei Offizieren in einem Starfighter” (apologies for the bad spelling)
I almost hesitate to mention this one, since I personally had the good fortune (or maybe good sense) not to ever see it. But Inchon (1981) makes many lists of “worst movies of all time” – regardless of category.
That “film” came out back when I was actually going to movies fairly often. I guess I must have seen the reviews at the time (which as I recall were pretty bad) and decided, “Um . . . no.” (smile)
That movie was financed by the Moonies. I do recall that if you attended the premiere, you were eligible to win a Rolls Royce. How/why a Rolls Royce was tied into a promotion of a Korean War movie was never explained.
That was the early 1980s, before the Korean auto industry was well-known in the US. They’d probably offer a high-end Hyundai today. (smile)
And yeah – Moon funded the thing. He reputedly was quite involved in its production, which is possibly why it’s so screwed up.
The big difference should be between Action Movies, Military Movies, and War Movies.
Action movies are unrealistic by nature. The hero is bigger than life and can’t be killed. He fights a villainous nemesis and saves the day. Usually they’re over-the-top with cartoon violence and Chauvinistic patriotism. They’re for fun and thrills, not historical accuracy. Delta Force and Rambo III should not be used in a history class.
War movies are about a bunch of archetypical guys (the Grizzled Sergeant [Lee Marvin], the Country Boy [Gary Cooper, Fess Parker], the City Slicker [George Tobias, Richard Conte], the scrounger / black marketeer [Bobby Darrin, Don Rickles, Phil Silvers], the Burned-Out Veteran [Steve McQueen], the Techie / College Boy [James Coburn]) that you get to know well – and then they die. They are dramas that try to tell what war is like.
Military movies try to explain what life in the military is like – in peace or war. The main character usually learns about himself, improves and grows, and realizes that the antagonistic superior he was stubbornly fighting was trying to help him all along. They try to get the details right, as they are usually a commercial for the arm of service they represent. An Officer and a Gentleman, Top Gun, Men of Honor, Biloxi Blues, Stripes, The D.I., Full Metal Jacket – are all good examples.
I’d add “Taking Chance” to the military movies list.
Hurt locker and Jack Reacher. Hands down, no room to debate, worst movies ever made and also happen to be military movies. I can’t decide which is worse, making EOD guys look like hero’s while infantry hide behind a wall, or Tom cruise “all are suspects are trained killers” and MPS are bad asses
Tears of the Sun… it’s got to be on the top 10 list of worst Military movies. I felt bad for Bruce Willis. Had to leave the theater 45 minutes in to it.
“Courage Under Fire” What a disaster of a movie with PC ideals.
Anyone else remember this one?
The Supernaturals, with Nichelle Nichols.
I suppose it is properly a thriller, not military. But, just…… Wow bad.
What about ….. Taps ?
It was a TV series and not a movie, but I have to go with “Over There”. They had so many stereotypes in one Squad that it was pathetic. You had the Sergeant that all he did was yell and the black guy that was an aspiring rapper. Those are just two examples.
Here’s one of the worst nobody mentioned: Jarhead. One of the worst depictions of Marines ever. The complete fabrication of a career in an imaginary Marine Corps by an untalented hack author. In a series, the adaptation of the Rolling Stone series: Generation Kill. Watching both of those left me with a burning desire to beat the piss out of the writers’ mothers for propagating such untalented dumbasses.
Frome the eighties, anything made by Golan Globus productions, which included Delta Force, and a bunch of others.
THE GENERALS DAUGHTER IS HORRIBLE! A RIFLE RANGE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BASE! YA RIGHT
AND I CAN’T STAND GEORGE CLOONEY WEARING ANY MILITARY UNIFORM!
HE IS A DOUCHEBAG!
What about Delta Farce? Or is that a guilty pleasure? 🙂
http://starspangledflags.com
THE ROCK BEATS THIS MOVIE ANY DAY