Terrorist Abu Hassad who is so evil that he wears a fake black beard, loosely glued to his chin, can only be stopped by a special force called Trident. Trident's members are recruited from other special forces, we are told, yet they need basic military training before they can begin. This cheap war movie from the Philippines doesn't make much sense, I cannot imagine that they had a script to work with. However, there are plenty of shootings, and these battle scenes show some basic technical skills which is why I vote with 2 stars, not 1 star. Otherwise a total waste of time.
2 Reviews
Three-Pronged Farce
Zantara Xenophobe19 January 2005
Warning: Spoilers
Okay, so I decide to punish myself one day and rent a movie I had never heard of starring no one I have ever heard of, right? That's a normal response for a masochist in all of us, isn't it? It's something every one of us does, right? Right???? Okay, fine. I guess I am the only one who does stuff like that. Anyway, I stumble across a film called "Trident Force" at the video store. Having no David A. Prior war movies to watch and nothing better to do, I decide to rent it. I am not usually fond of the war genre, but I figure it can't be all that bad. I mean, I have suffered through some really bad things before and I can take it. But how wrong I was. How very, very wrong.
The movie starts out in an unnamed, war-torn country somewhere in Southeast Asia. A female reporter is visiting a military camp of the non-evil side and given a bodyguard, who ends up being the hero of the film. Since I really couldn't be bothered with learning the characters' names, I'll just call him Hero (for the record, Hero is named Rashid). While Hero and Reporter are outside of the camp, they spot the enemy army hiding behind a sand dune, ready to strike. They do and we get a very, very long battle scene on the world's largest beach between the good guy army in white against the bad guy army in black. To their credit, the filmmakers do a good job with this battle. The main problem is that we don't care. We know nothing about these armies, or even the background of Hero, so it doesn't matter to us who wins. After many die, the evil army retreats, licking their wounds and the good army celebrates. Next we go to Moscow where we meet out villain, currently enjoying the violation of a teenage boy. Villain is interrupted by Head Henchman, who informs him of the bad news concerning the battle. Then we are suddenly in Mongolia, where Villain and Head Henchman meet with a female clad in black leather. She's given her orders, and silently she hops on a motorcycle for a long drive to a public shopping center where she will commit a suicide bombing. That's when something phenomenally unbelievable happens. What is this amazing thing? This thing that shocked my system? It's the opening credits. Why is this so astounding? Because the opening credits happen a full TWENTY MINUTES into the movie! By that point, I had forgotten about not seeing them, but when they appeared I checked my VCR timer and, sure enough, the first three scenes lasted over twenty minutes.
But really the beginning credits could have went on until the end credits and the rest of the movie would have been tolerable. Instead, we are treated to an hour and ten minutes of puerile cinematic flatulence. The British government decides that taking out Villain once and for all should be the number one priority. But, they reason, getting at him is going to be difficult so they have to assemble a big group of commandos to fight through Villain's men. I'd like to point out that this seems very stupid because they already have a man inside Villain's organization. He's Hero's Brother, and he has already ascended to third-in-command, so why couldn't they just have asked Hero's Brother to do the job? Or just air raid the compound since it is no secret where Villain is at. I'll answer my own question: Then there wouldn't be a Trident Force! Oh no! The British government decides to send Hero and a bunch of other soldiers to a training camp (I think it was supposed to be in Canada, if I was following it correctly) where they can prepare to defeat Villain. Trident Force is composed of a whole bunch of diverse people from around the world, all with the usual stereotypes you'd expect they would have, and its so annoying that you become embarrassed to be watching the movie. Worst of all is the obnoxious Australian, who is one of the camp's trainers. He does every dirty trick in the book to try and make Hero fail and not be accepted in the group, but in the end he suddenly insists to join the group and they just go ahead and let him. I couldn't believe my endurance at that point because here is the movie's nadir. We wait . . .and wait . . . and wait . . . and wait for the training to end. Meanwhile Hero's Brother is found out and killed by Villain, giving motivation for Trident Force to storm the camp and me motivation to shut the movie off on a high note. But I kept watching until the end, hoping to be surprised but knowing I wouldn't be. And I wasn't. The acting is pretty bad, especially by Reporter and Australian Bully. Beyond the first twenty minutes, the action is bad, as the so called climax is a bore and not worth the massive amount of time spent at the training camp. The writing is the biggest bane: Not only is it rudimentary and boring, but characters seem to jaunt from country to country and back again with no explanation.
With the immense popularity of the DVD revolution overwhelming the few of us remaining with rusty VCRs, the few copies of "Trident Force" still existing won't be around for much longer. This is a rare case where that is a good thing. Well, except for us masochists out there. What's going to happen to us when VHS is no more? I know what I'll be doing: Trying to erase the memory of this movie from my mind but being unable to because I'll have nothing else to torture myself with. Zantara's score: 1 out of 10.
The movie starts out in an unnamed, war-torn country somewhere in Southeast Asia. A female reporter is visiting a military camp of the non-evil side and given a bodyguard, who ends up being the hero of the film. Since I really couldn't be bothered with learning the characters' names, I'll just call him Hero (for the record, Hero is named Rashid). While Hero and Reporter are outside of the camp, they spot the enemy army hiding behind a sand dune, ready to strike. They do and we get a very, very long battle scene on the world's largest beach between the good guy army in white against the bad guy army in black. To their credit, the filmmakers do a good job with this battle. The main problem is that we don't care. We know nothing about these armies, or even the background of Hero, so it doesn't matter to us who wins. After many die, the evil army retreats, licking their wounds and the good army celebrates. Next we go to Moscow where we meet out villain, currently enjoying the violation of a teenage boy. Villain is interrupted by Head Henchman, who informs him of the bad news concerning the battle. Then we are suddenly in Mongolia, where Villain and Head Henchman meet with a female clad in black leather. She's given her orders, and silently she hops on a motorcycle for a long drive to a public shopping center where she will commit a suicide bombing. That's when something phenomenally unbelievable happens. What is this amazing thing? This thing that shocked my system? It's the opening credits. Why is this so astounding? Because the opening credits happen a full TWENTY MINUTES into the movie! By that point, I had forgotten about not seeing them, but when they appeared I checked my VCR timer and, sure enough, the first three scenes lasted over twenty minutes.
But really the beginning credits could have went on until the end credits and the rest of the movie would have been tolerable. Instead, we are treated to an hour and ten minutes of puerile cinematic flatulence. The British government decides that taking out Villain once and for all should be the number one priority. But, they reason, getting at him is going to be difficult so they have to assemble a big group of commandos to fight through Villain's men. I'd like to point out that this seems very stupid because they already have a man inside Villain's organization. He's Hero's Brother, and he has already ascended to third-in-command, so why couldn't they just have asked Hero's Brother to do the job? Or just air raid the compound since it is no secret where Villain is at. I'll answer my own question: Then there wouldn't be a Trident Force! Oh no! The British government decides to send Hero and a bunch of other soldiers to a training camp (I think it was supposed to be in Canada, if I was following it correctly) where they can prepare to defeat Villain. Trident Force is composed of a whole bunch of diverse people from around the world, all with the usual stereotypes you'd expect they would have, and its so annoying that you become embarrassed to be watching the movie. Worst of all is the obnoxious Australian, who is one of the camp's trainers. He does every dirty trick in the book to try and make Hero fail and not be accepted in the group, but in the end he suddenly insists to join the group and they just go ahead and let him. I couldn't believe my endurance at that point because here is the movie's nadir. We wait . . .and wait . . . and wait . . . and wait for the training to end. Meanwhile Hero's Brother is found out and killed by Villain, giving motivation for Trident Force to storm the camp and me motivation to shut the movie off on a high note. But I kept watching until the end, hoping to be surprised but knowing I wouldn't be. And I wasn't. The acting is pretty bad, especially by Reporter and Australian Bully. Beyond the first twenty minutes, the action is bad, as the so called climax is a bore and not worth the massive amount of time spent at the training camp. The writing is the biggest bane: Not only is it rudimentary and boring, but characters seem to jaunt from country to country and back again with no explanation.
With the immense popularity of the DVD revolution overwhelming the few of us remaining with rusty VCRs, the few copies of "Trident Force" still existing won't be around for much longer. This is a rare case where that is a good thing. Well, except for us masochists out there. What's going to happen to us when VHS is no more? I know what I'll be doing: Trying to erase the memory of this movie from my mind but being unable to because I'll have nothing else to torture myself with. Zantara's score: 1 out of 10.
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