NOTE: This review is for the original version of El hombre que vino del odio, not the version re-cut as Mean Mother.
Argentinian director Leon Klimovsky was truly a master of all genres: over the course of his long career he helmed horror flicks (the excellent The People Who Own the Dark), spaghetti westerns (A Few Dollars for Django), gialli (A Dragonfly for Each Corpse), and war movies (A Bullet for Rommel). A Soldier Named Joe initially seems likely to fall into the last category, but like most Klimovsky films it's anything but straightforward. Joe (Dennis Safren) is an aspiring concert pianist and Vietnam War draftee sentenced to Leavenworth for treachery by an officer who sounds oddly like Paths of Glory's George Macready. When the jeep transporting Joe to the brig is ambushed by Viet Cong, our anti-hero deserts and makes his way all the way across Thailand and India to Karachi, Pakistan, where he finds himself stranded until Daniel (Lang Jeffries) comes to his rescue - but there's a catch. Daniel can help Joe get to Rome...if he carries something there for him. Uh oh! The twists keep coming throughout this film, which used to play on TV during the '70s but has only been seen since on Greek videotape. Also featuring Luciana Paluzzi and Antonio Mayans, this is a decent little intriguer that deserves better than to be completely forgotten.
Argentinian director Leon Klimovsky was truly a master of all genres: over the course of his long career he helmed horror flicks (the excellent The People Who Own the Dark), spaghetti westerns (A Few Dollars for Django), gialli (A Dragonfly for Each Corpse), and war movies (A Bullet for Rommel). A Soldier Named Joe initially seems likely to fall into the last category, but like most Klimovsky films it's anything but straightforward. Joe (Dennis Safren) is an aspiring concert pianist and Vietnam War draftee sentenced to Leavenworth for treachery by an officer who sounds oddly like Paths of Glory's George Macready. When the jeep transporting Joe to the brig is ambushed by Viet Cong, our anti-hero deserts and makes his way all the way across Thailand and India to Karachi, Pakistan, where he finds himself stranded until Daniel (Lang Jeffries) comes to his rescue - but there's a catch. Daniel can help Joe get to Rome...if he carries something there for him. Uh oh! The twists keep coming throughout this film, which used to play on TV during the '70s but has only been seen since on Greek videotape. Also featuring Luciana Paluzzi and Antonio Mayans, this is a decent little intriguer that deserves better than to be completely forgotten.
