Blood and Steel

A movie that showed up in the FXM rotation in May is Blood and Steel. I don't know how long it's going to stay in the FXM rotation, but it seems to be available on DVD courtesy of Fox's MOD scheme. Since I hadn't heard of the movie before, I decided to DVR it and watch to do a review here.

The setting is Gizo Island, somewhere in the South Pacific. A small rubber boat pulls up to the island, and four men get out. This is the 1940s, so it's obviously World War II, and the men are obviously Americans surreptitously landing on a Japanese-held island. Lt. Jenson (John Lupton) is the leader of the four, a group of Seabees on a mission to determine whether the island will make a useful air base once the Americans capture it. Along with Jenson are Jim (Brett Halsey), Cip (John Brinkley), and George (James Edwards).

Of course, the island is still Japanese held, so the men have to stay in hiding to try to avoid the Japanese. Soon enough, the Japanese find them and a fire fight ensues, with George getting shot and having to be left behind because doing anything else will jeopardize the mission.

So the three remaining men soldier on, and George is eventually approached by a native (non-Japanese) of the island (Ziva Rodann, who was born in British Palestine and nowhere near Polynesia). She's frightened, but doesn't reveal the secret to the Japanese, who have set up a headquarters nearby.

The other men wind up engaging in more firefights with the Japanese, who are presented more as bored than inept, which is why they don't seem to be as diligent as they could in killing these four Americans, what with their massive numeric superiority. Amazingly enough, the Americans complete their mission in time. And nothing else happens.

Blood and Steel was (or at least looks like it was) and ultra-low budget B movie. It only runs a little over an hour, and as I was watching I kept thinking that it was playing out more like a TV episode of some World War II-themed TV show. Sure enough, one of the commenters on IMDb had the same thought, and the director, Bernard L. Kowalski, did most of his work in TV.

There's very little going on in Blood and Steel, and its biggets sin is that it's just boring. It's not horrendously bad, but it's the epitome of a movie that's not very good, either. I noticed it was available from Fox's MOD scheme, but at those prices, I'd wait for the next FXM showing.