Battleground

2012 "The Ambush Begins"
4.2| 1h35m| en
Details

The war in Vietnam is announced to finish. American troops are withdrawn and the relief of peace echoes through the air. However, as the calm after the storm spreads a sigh of relief, there is something unsettling amidst the forests of North Michigan. A disturbed war veteran remains, but he lives for one reason only - to kill. What would happen if six ruthless men stumbled across him in the eerie deserted forest, after their mass bank-robbery leaves them running from the law with three million dollars? Would they be better off facing the cells of prison or can they escape from the murderer out to get them…?

Director

Producted By

Dimeworth Films

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Reviews

Mjeteconer Just perfect...
Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!
Glimmerubro It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.
BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
Themoviejunkiex This movie was totally awesome. What is more awesome is that Hugh Lambe is a college professor in real life. This guy is my professor and he never told us he was an actor, he teaches business, he has a few degrees. When I looked him up and saw this it blew my mind! I watched the movie and needless to say it was blew my mind seeing my teacher as "the hunter" in this movie. The movie is like a twist on an evil Rambo that lives in the woods. The movie has great special effects and great directing. Its full of twists and turns, jam packed with action and gore. I can't wait to see the sequel when it comes out with Hugh Lambe starring in it. We need more movies with Hugh Lambe in it.
Hazy Davey Dear Mr. Mckay II.Although it is quite obvious that the movie in mention is not good at all (sorry to say that)...I have one question and one suggestion though.Q: Why didn't you blew up the ambulance after bank robbery when robbers switched cars? It is once classic cliché that you should'v definitely use.S: Please, find something else to do, but don't, I beg you, don't make any more movies.Yours truly Hazy Davey from Sydney
brdmacfreak A cheap, totally predictable copy of predator. There was not one surprise in the entire movie. Don't waste your time.The character development is virtually non-existent. The fight scenes are so fake it is amazing that an old running from many machines guns unloading clips doesn't get at the least, winged. Even the "crew" finding a liquor bottle from the 1970s and drinking it is, well, lame.I wish I could get my time back from watching the movie. I kept waiting for it to get better. Don't waste your time.The old man must have been not just a soldier, but an Olympian runner as he manages to beat men half his age, through tunnels while the youngster are above ground hauling butt.Watch the Expendables for the umpteenth time again.
Paul Andrews Battleground starts as six armed thieves make their getaway from a bungled bank robbery in an ambulance, having shot two cop's dead at the crime scene they are in a desperate hurry to get out of the country & Mitch (Bryan Larkin) calls in a favour to get himself & his men flown out of the US but they will have to wait for twelve hours. The gang decide to head into an isolated forest to wait & try to avoid capture but during the night their van mysterious disappears, with over three million dollars & a long way to go they agree to walk & steal a car on the way but they are not alone in the forest as a deranged Vietnam veteran (Hugh Lambe) begins to kill the men one at a time using traps & his own sniper rifle. The gang of thieves quickly realise they are being hunted & must find a way to turn the tables or all end up dead & you can't spend three million dollars if your dead, can you?Originally called Skeleton Lake (which is odd since there's no lake in it much less one called Skeleton lake...) this Canadian production was co-written & directed by Neil Mackay & while it's nothing special it's watchable enough in a routine competent sort of way, I've seen a lot better but then I've also seen a lot worse. What we have here is your typical backwoods survival film where some random character's are chased & killed in some remote forest somewhere, we've seen the setting before, we've seen the group of desperate men on the run after a robbery gone wrong before too & if I'm not very much mistaken we have also seen the deranged Vietnam Veteran who goes psycho before as well. As I said Battleground is nothing new & it's fairly predictable too with the only surprises of any note being how each victim is killed. The killer is given no motivation whatsoever other than he served in Vietnam, none of the character's have any real personality & are merely there to make the numbers up & get killed. At just over 80 minutes long Battleground moves along at a decent pace I suppose & it competent for what it is so as long as you don't expect too much you could do a lot worse than this.Unfortunately too much of Battleground is nothing more than the various character's running around a forest, there are a couple of minor shoot-outs but not much action. While there's not much gore there is one sequence which is quite nasty & almost at odds with the rest of the film, the Vietnam nutter cuts a guy's head off, pokes his eyeball out with a scalpel, proceeds to slice his face & scalp off to leave the fleshless skull before putting the guy's skinned face mask on the table next to the skull. It's a nasty scene which as I said is removed from anything else in the film which is otherwise fairly tame with nothing more than a few gunshot wounds & blood splatter.Shot in Ontario in Canada this is surprisingly well made with no hand-held jerky photography or quick machine gun editing so I have to give it some credit for that at least, are filmmakers finally realising these two annoying techniques are universally disliked? By me anyway. The acting isn't up to much, end of story.Battleground isn't a terrible film it's just that it's not a very good one either, it's a competent horror thriller that you will watch & probably have forgotten about within a couple of days. It could have been better but it could have been so much worse too.

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