Stars: Nick Nolte, Tuesday Weld, Michael Moriarty, Anthony Zerbe

Director: Karel Reisz

Summary: In Karel Reisz's film, based on Robert Stone's novel DOG SOLDIERS, John Converse (Michael Moriarty), a Marine combat veteran, returns to Vietnam as a war correspondent. He is overwhelmed by the challenges that face him, and so he decides that in an insane world, it makes sense to to smuggle heroin into the United States, and joins in with a conspiracy group suspected to have CIA connections. His ex-marine buddy, Ray Hicks (Nick Nolte), now a merchant marine sailor, helps him smuggle the heroin to San Francisco. When Ray delivers the drugs to John's wife Marge (Tuesday Weld), thugs disguised as Federal agents steal the drugs. Outraged at being double crossed, Hicks takes Marge with him on the run, followed now by real CIA agents. In their flight through the drug underworld of L.A. and down into New Mexico, Hicks discovers that Marge is a junkie herself. Though she is physically weak, she nonetheless possesses an inner strength to match Hick's exterior strength. Nolte, in one of his first staring roles, is unequaled in his expression of intelligence and sensitivity, while being simultaneously tougher than nails. Reisz keeps the action and characters in the forefront, and in doing so keeps this heavily allegorical story about the corrupting effect of the Vietnam War on America from collapsing under its own weight.

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An enjoyable low-concept monster movie, Dog Soldiersis basically Night of the Living Deadwith werewolves. A platoon on a training exercise in Scotland, already fed up because they are missing a vital England-Germany match, come across the wounded survivor of a special ops team (Liam Cunningham) that has been attacked by monsters. There's a confused conspiracy angle, with a scheme to sacrifice the squaddies in order to capture a werewolf for military uses, but it's mostly a lost patrol picture with the soldiers besieged in a mysteriously abandoned house in the woods, complete with "pork" stew on the boil.

The hardman sergeant (Sean Pertwee) is disembowelled early but gruesomely patched up with superglue, letting the sensitive Scot (Kevin McKidd) play hero. A pack of effectively glimpsed Howling-style bipedal werewolves make repeated attacks on the house, whittling the cast down with each invasion. The soldier characterisations are solid cliché, albeit of a British variety rarely seen in horror movies (a highlight of the use of Brit slang is the Geordie shouting "Come on if you think you're hard enough"). The monsters are okay, but writer-director Neil Marshall's strongest suit is his third, as editor, covering for the old-fashioned monster suit effects and making the suspense and action mechanics work.

On the DVD:Dog Soldiersis an excellent DVD package complete with two commentary tracks, a British one with Marshall and the cast and an American one with a couple of producers. Both are interesting and rarely overlap, and there's an amusing contradiction between the Brits who rush over script changes they didn't want to make and the Yanks who imposed a sub-plot they feel saved the picture. Also, a bunch of trailers that amusingly spoof a recent army recruitment ad, deleted scenes and outtakes with optional Marshall commentary, a standard making-of featurette, storyboards and Marshall's short film, Combat. --Kim Newman

Aspect Ratio:	1.85 Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Interactive Menus, Chapter Selection
Subtitles:	Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish
Year:	1978
Release Date:	February 21, 2005
Runtime:	121 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	10005023
Keywords:	Action, Dog, Rain, General, Stop, Wide, Screen, Adventure, Aka, Soldier's, Who'll
Genre:	Action/Adventure