Any war film that features an American soldier punching Hitler in the face can’t be taken too seriously.
Zone Troopers is a science fiction/war movie mashup that stars Tim Thomerson as “Iron Sarge” Stone. Stone leads a small band of American soldiers, the young Joey Verona (Timothy Van Patten); a Polish lunkhead named Mittens (Art LaFleur); and journalist Charles Dolan (Biff Manard), behind enemy lines. The group is having a hard time navigating the Italian countryside as their compasses spin wildly and their radio only picks up static. These unusual occurrences only manage to put them deeper into enemy territory. Just when things look really grim, they stumble across a crashed rocket ship of unknown origin. Unfortunately, so have the Nazis.
Thanks to the film’s low budget, it’s hard to tell if director and co-writer Danny Bilson was attempting to satirize World War II action films and 1950s B-movies. I’d like to think that he was, considering the cliched dialogue and stereotypical characters. The biggest missteps are the action scenes which come across as grown men playing war rather than life or death battles.
But Zone Troopers overcomes its budgetary trappings with a light-hearted atmosphere and manages to be quite fun. Any war film that features an American soldier punching Hitler in the face can’t be taken too seriously.
Tim Thomerson, who is best known for roles in cult films such as Near Dark and Trancers, offers up a comically gruff performance as the Sarge. His portrayal of a man who puts duty before everything else could be surgically inserted into any World War II B-movie and not feel at all out of place. His reactions when confronted with aliens and alien technology are dead-on. Honestly, I think Tim Thomerson is grossly underrated and underutilized as a character actor.
Bilson and co-writer Paul De Meo co-wrote Disney’s 1991 nostalgic adventure, The Rocketeer, and that movie proves their ambitious visions translate to film much better when flush with big studio cash. Zone Troopers could have benefited from a larger budget but does have some impressive set design and special effects for what’s clearly a B-movie production.
It’s definitely a bit of an oddball flick but, as it is, Zone Troopers is an innocuous way to pass a weekend afternoon.
3.0 out of 5.0 stars
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