Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, February 25, 1995                   TAG: 9503010032
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: C10   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

`WALKING DEAD' COULD HAVE BEEN GREAT

That's a double shame because it could be such a compelling story with so many levels of meaning and conflict. But matters of politics, history and race not withstanding, "The Walking Dead" is simply a bad, poorly made movie.

In his feature debut, writer-director Preston A. Whitmore II has taken a handful of war movie cliches and hashed them together into a sloppy story that doesn't sustain a single tone. At times, it's a simple "Rambo" shoot-'em-up. At other times, it apparently tries to be a realistic depiction of jungle warfare. There are also some cursory comments on the problems faced by black men in this country in the early 1970s.

Sgt. Barkley (Joe Morton) finds himself in charge of a POW rescue mission that's made up, inexplicably, of raw recruits - like Corporal Evans (Allen Payne) and Private Brooks (Vonte Sweet), who have literally just set foot in Vietnam - and experienced soldiers like Private Branche (Eddie Griffin).

They helicopter into the jungle at night and land in the middle of a firefight. The survivors try to make their way out. Through a series of clumsy flashbacks, the reasons for their being in Vietnam are revealed.

There are several problems:

First, and most obvious are the Florida locations, which do not look at all like Vietnam - either the war that was televised or the war that has been re-created in other films. The stateside sets are equally unconvincing and notable only for their low-budget look.

Then there are the incredible lapses in logic in Whitmore's script. Perhaps the strangest moment comes when two characters are cut off from their unit at night. They're surrounded by angry, hostile, well-armed Vietnamese. Do they dig in to a defensive position? No. They fire up smokes with a bright Zippo lighter, stand around talking and finally burst into song with a spontaneous rendition of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" like would-be Pips auditioning for Gladys Knight.

Such characters deserve anything that happens to them.

Both the production notes and Eddie Griffin, who's out promoting the film, make the point that the script was written in one week. That's easy to believe. The film looks like a rough draft with a few good characters and ideas, and a lot of extraneous material that gets in the way.

Overall, the performances are strong, particularly Joe Morton's. He's one of the best character actors in the business and almost overcomes the material. But the "revelation" about his character is the weakest and most cliched of the bunch.

"The Walking Dead" isn't the worst film made about Vietnam - that honor still belongs to John Wayne's "The Green Berets," which ends with the sun setting in the east. Comparisons to more lavish productions like "Apocalypse Now!" and "Platoon" are really unfair.

For more personal and more accurate stories of that war, take a look at "84 Charlie MoPic" or "The Siege of Firebase Gloria" and hope that sometime soon, Wallace Terry's book "Bloods" is adapted to the screen.

The Walking Dead

*

A Savoy release playing at the Salem Valley 8 and Valley View Mall 6. 90 min. Rated R for violence, strong language, sexual material.