Paul Hanley's Top 10 Crazy-Ass 'Nam Movies

1) The Losers a.k.a. Nam's Angels (1970): William Smith and Adam Roarke (the two greatest biker-movie actors of all time) take their hogs to 'Nam (which looks nothing like the Philippines) and go tear-assin' around lookin' for the Shit. Remember the motorcycle movie Bruce Willis' girlfriend was watching in Pulp Fiction? This is it.

2) Chrome and Hot Leather (1971): Another William Smith biker flick, but this one's from the "Green Berets come home and fight Hell's Angels" subgenre (yes, it really is a subgenre). Contains the choice line, "Can't you see we're menacing someone?"

3) China Gate (1957): Sam Fuller – so far ahead of his time he made a 'Nam movie before the U.S. was even (officially) in the damn war. Expatriate Americans in the French Foreign Legion try to assassinate Lee Van Cleef (playing an Asian communist!). Includes Angie Dickinson's legs, Nat King Cole stepping on a bamboo spike, comic relief Frenchmen getting brutally machine-gunned, and all the usual vulgar brilliance you expect from a Fuller flick.

4) Charlie Bravo (1980): Wildly anachronistic French exploitation flick about a group of ultra-anti-heroic paratroopers battling the Vietminh in 1954. These guys are so bad they blow up their own helicopters for refusing to pick up wounded. Testicles are electrocuted, asses are stabbed, and if my eyes didn't deceive me, a dying soldier is administered fellative last rites by his C.O. Hands-down the most batshit 'Nam movie I've ever seen – I've seen it, and I'm still not sure it actually exists.

5) Combat Shock (1986): "Eraserhead meets Taxi Driver" isn't a phrase you often use, unless you're describing this 'Nam-vet-goes-nutzoid flick that was eventually released by Troma. The 'Nam flashbacks are mostly stock footage, intercut with a couple actors in surplus gear running around what looks like the Jersey shore. The trailer's even better than the movie.

6) 84 Charlie MoPic (1989): Years before The Blair Witch Project there was this movie, which basically did the same thing, only with unseen Viet Cong instead of an unseen witch-serial-killer-whatever. Actually pretty impressive for its nonbudget, and it contains my favorite scream of "Get some!" in any 'Nam movie ever.

7) Eastern Condors (1987): Sammo Hung's movie about Asian-Americans getting sent on a Dirty Dozen-type mission to blow up a U.S. weapons dump left after the communist takeover. About as accurate with Vietnam as A Trip to the Moon was with space exploration, and totally bugnuts awesome.

8) No Substitute for Victory (1970): Possibly even less accurate about the war is this "documentary" hosted by John Wayne. An 11th-hour attempt at propaganda that looks like it was shot on Super 8 in Duke's finished basement study. Includes a lot of J.W.'s friends explaining why we can't lose Vietnam, including Martha Raye and World War II Gen. Mark Clark. If ya know anything about the Battle of Monte Cassino, you'll know that Martha Raye's the one with the credibility.

9) Brotherhood of Death (1976): Blaxploitation flick about 'Nam vets returning to their Southern hometown and using Viet Cong guerrilla tactics to fight the Ku Klux Klan. The 'Nam scenes look like they were shot in my backyard, and everyone's wearing World War II-era "duck hunter" camo (guess that's what was surplus in '76), but it's still a charming bit of regional filmmaking.

10) Bullet in the Head (1990): John Woo in "The 'Nam." What more do ya need to know?