Wow, someone has clearly taken his desire to come up with the ultimate "Rambo" rip-off to the extreme! Ferdinando Baldi has always been one of Italy's most capricious exploitation directors. In the late 60s and early 70s, he made a couple of very good and original spaghetti westerns, like "Texas Addio" and "Blindman", but he ended his career in the 80s with poorly financed and righteously forgotten imitations of Hollywood blockbusters like "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and most notably "Rambo II & III". The best thing about "Just a Damned Soldier" is the title, because furthermore there isn't a plot, character development, suspense or (intentional) humor. The film is nothing but a series of random shootouts and explosions. The shootouts are hilarious because the four American mercenary heroes never get hit whereas the literally hundreds of Filipino extras theatrically drop dead in small groups. These poor suckers run straight and unprotected towards the bullet rains and don't even attempt to fire back! The explosions are hilarious as well, since the aimlessly thrown grenades spectacularly pulverize entire military targets and obviously cause more damage than they are supposed to. But arguably the most ridicule scene is when someone, a good guy actually, gets executed by using him as a living darts board! If you're into cheap action guff, give this obscure jungle joke a look and then forget about it forever.
PS: the other reviewer is right! Lead actor Peter Hooten does look like Steve Guttenberg! It's difficult to take someone seriously as a lethal mercenary when he has the face of Mahoney in "Police Academy".
PS: the other reviewer is right! Lead actor Peter Hooten does look like Steve Guttenberg! It's difficult to take someone seriously as a lethal mercenary when he has the face of Mahoney in "Police Academy".