The Last Hunter (1980)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C Film: C
The
Vietnam fiasco of the 1960s and 1970s spawned two cycles of films. The first was the “back home” cycle that did
not discuss the war explicitly, but dealt with the debate at home and where
society stood at best. Michael Cimino’s
masterwork The Deer Hunter (1978,
reviewed elsewhere on this site) opened up the debate to the war itself and
remains one of the most important films about the war, the U.S. and what truth
is. Francis Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979, also reviewed on
the site) and a whole cycle of Vietnam War genre works arrived and even that
featured films battling each other.
The best
films were the boldest and looked at war as true hell and Vietnam as the sham
it was. The worst featured revisionist
history that made all Vietnamese enemies and portrayed the Vietnam conflict as
a just war (though no war was ever declared) and Antonio Margheriti’s The Last Hunter (1980) is one of the
early, exploitive examples of the reactionary kind of film that added insult to
the genocide and catastrophe of historic events.
Of
course, this film was on the heels of sexploitation, Blaxploitation, the first
slasher films and cheapie imports out to make a quick buck among the other grindhouse
fare. Unfortunately, this is pretty
sloppy and embarrassing, showing how far off cinema and people in general were
within beginning to grasp what had really happened in Vietnam. Of course, this is beyond politically
incorrect and is one reason some might enjoy it, but this is a silly work
outside of that and just never adds up on even its own terms. David Warbeck and Tisa Farrow star.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image shows its age, but has some good color
and some nice location shots. The Dolby
Digital 2.0 Mono also shows its age and is good for what it is, but nothing
beyond competent. Extras include stills,
the original theatrical trailer and a making of featurette.
- Nicholas Sheffo
