It blows me away that John Sayles wrote this. Yes, a Dolph Lundgren movie. It has him as Nick Gunar, a merc who assembles a team of mercenaries to take an island. When they get there, he learns that they’ll be working for his old nemesis Keefer (Trevor Goddard, who has been showing up in so many movies I watch) and The Colonel (Kevin Tighe).

The mercs include Jamaal (Tom Wright), Jimmy G (Tony Denison), Blades (Tiny Lister), Ocker (Tim Guinee), Nolan (Don Harvey) and Grace Lashield (Catherine Bell), who get away from a trumped up murder charge when Nick allows Keefer to kick his ass, then go upriver where they meet the natives, starting with Po (B.D. Wong), who is pissing in the river. My military friends, this is the man who has screwed up every single one of Dr. John Hammond’s theme parks. Watch him closely.

Nick’s men Nolan and Jimmy want to wipe out the natives and take their treasure, but he stops them and kicks out anyone who isn’t on his side. This is what happens when you work for the man — businessmen Warren (Thomas Gibson) and Lyle (Perry King, who directed) — instead of following your heart, which is what he wants to do from here on out. I mean, you’d probably feel the same way if you hooked up with Loki (Charlotte Lewis from the beloved Dial: Help).

Eventually, everyone has to battle and of course Nick gets his revenge when he fights Keefer to the death. All of this over bat guano, which can create treasure. I can now say I watched a movie where Dolph fights Kano over poop. Also: Tiny Lister just launches some children as if he has no care for their lives and I love him for that.

This was rewritten by Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris (Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight). Viola explained how that happened to The Cincinati Enquirer: “It was actually an old Sayles script that some producers bought and wanted to make for action star Dolph Lundgren! The Sayles script needed to be brought up to date a little, more action scenes added and, most importantly, had to be made into an ensemble movie because the producers were worried that Dolph just couldn’t carry the movie that John Sayles originally wrote. And that an audience wouldn’t sit still to watch Lundgren tackle all those great John Sayles monologues. We were actually pretty deferential to Sayles’ original script and the finished movie is actually quite a good little action flick. Probably the only time we’ll ever get a chance to rewrite John Sayles.”

I’m a big fan of movies where killing machines end up meeting native children — who call them G.I. Joe — and end up saving their villages. Or, if you watch Strike Commando, getting them killed and having a long monologue about Disneyland, magic genies and climbing trees to get popcorn.

The MVD Rewind Collection release of Men of War has extras such as an introduction by director Perry Lang, a making-of feature, dailies and raw footage, a photo gallery, a trailer, a collectible mini-poster and a limited edition slipcover. You can get this release from MVD.