Woodyanders
Rugged adventurer John Hamilton (a solid and likable performance by Michael Dudikoff) gets hired by a team of shady folks with assorted secret agendas to find a fabled lost city located in the Amazon. Things go awry when the search party stumbles across evil Nazi scientist Dr. Wolfgang Manteuffel (a nicely sinister portrayal by Robert Vaughn).Adequately directed in workmanlike fashion by the usually more competent and on the money Steve Carver (whose other much better films include "Big Bad Mama," "The Arena," "An Eye for an Eye," and "Lone Wolf McQuade"), with an often sluggish pace, an overly convoluted script by Andrew Deutsch and Edward Sampson that gets bogged down in rather tedious talk, and infrequent, but still decently staged action scenes, this one has all the essential ingredients -- Nazis, a band of scurvy pirates, a tribe of deadly cannibals, plenty of treacherous back-stabbing characters, and a few okay plot twists -- to qualify as a possible contender, but alas the fairly tepid execution fails to make all these promising elements cohere into an exciting and satisfying whole. Fortunately, a fine supporting cast of reliable veteran thespians ensures that this picture remains watchable: Donald Pleasence as the shifty Heinrich Spaatz, Herbert Lom as the corrupt Colonel Ricardo Diaz, and L.Q. Jones as grizzled old rascal Eddie Hiller. Moreover, there's yummy distaff eye candy in the fetching forms of Sarah Maur Thorp as the sweet Anna Blakesley, Cynthia Erland as Spaatz's sexy secretary Maria, and Foziah Davidson as the tough Dalia. Both Avraham Karpick's slick cinematography and Sasha Matson's moody score are up to par. An acceptable diversion.
Nick Drew
This movie is the pits. The worst kind of B film making. The acting isn't bad, but that's not saying much. Robert Vaughn and Donald Pleasance are included in the cast, and sleep walk their way through their respective scenes. Dudikoff doesn't do much apart from wandering about and mouthing his dialogue. There is some gun play and pyrotechnics later on in the movie, but the pace is so deadly slow you probably won't notice. The jungle locale' isn't used to good effect, and the photography is listless. This movie is a pointless exercise in monotony. There is nothing to get your teeth into, the scenario is so uninteresting, it all amounts to very little. Even Dudikoff fans won't be able to find anything redeeming about this outing. Consider the bullet dodged.
MichaelM24
Michael Dudikoff goes Indiana Jones in this jungle adventure yarn about former Nazi scientists operating in the depths of the Amazon. Okay, so Dudikoff is no Harrison Ford (who is?), but he comes off well as the same kind of hero, even if he doesn't get to do as much adventuring as Indy does. He just sort of walks through the jungle for most of the film, leading a group of people through treacherous territory and avoiding killer river pirates. I've only seen this one a couple times (despite having it on video), but I could never really tell what the point of whole thing was. I guess I need to watch it more closely next time. All I know is former Nazi commander Donald Pleasance (great as always) wants something to do with former Nazi scientist Robert Vaughn, and I know the girl who's part of the team wants revenge on Vaughn for killing a relative of her's during World World II. Veteran character actor L.Q. Jones lends his always-welcome presence in a small role. Based on a novel by Alistair McLean, RIVER OF DEATH is no RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. In fact, I would say that it's probably my least-favorite jungle adventure movie without a whole lot going for it, other than Dudikoff playing a different type of character, some okay scenes, and some nice location shoots. Even jungle adventure movie fans might be disappointed.
I.K
This movie was as fun as enema. The "plot" is full of cliches, the actors certainly werent after any Oscars ( I wonder how an actor of the calibre of Pleasance was talked into this bizarre freak show?) Dudikoff does some of the worst acting in the history of film. The last insult was the german accent imitation by Vaughn and the anonymous German captain.
AD
