The Annihilators

• Also known as Annihilators
• Directed by Charles E. Sellier Jr.
• September 22, 1988 (Argentina-video) / December 8, 1988 (Mexico)

An ex-soldier finds his neighborhood terrorized by a street gang and calls some former comrades to get rid of them.

Given the era The Annihilators was made, they were going for the feel of the then very well-known The A-Team but were too afraid to blatantly rip it off. The story comes off like it was a dragged out story of that series without the cheesy quality.

This is a fast filmed Vietnam exploitation film where the characters show just how awesome they are against some cannon fodder villain. Here it is a street gang that has killed their former comrade when he was standing up to them. Unlike others of the genre, they are not refighting the war.

The gangs here dress a lot like they’re straight out of the original Death Wish. All that’s missing is Jeff Goldblum. Paul Koslo as the gang leader Roy Boy Jagger does not help to elevate the poor portrayal which looks to be aimed at a level of social consciousness. Roy Boy’s gang stores drugs for some Colombian pushers though they do not appear to be selling any in the neighborhood. Why is this market safe?

Christopher Stone as team leader Bill and Gerrit Graham as Ray Track, who are the other two better known names, cannot do much to aid this film. It could have been more entertaining but is a film with very bad acting by many supporting players. A few are recognizable from other cheap direct-to-video offerings and I vaguely recall them doing better. The Annihilators wastes its talent rather than using it to better its shortcomings.

You need people who are either in on the joke or who can take the material seriously enough that they are convincing enough to let you believe whatever they would have you believe. And I just don’t think that some of the supporting actors and even main actors sold it. Nobody cared enough when making the movie.

The assembled group of war buds is taking on the warehouse guys though not doing much against the cartels because blowing up their stash will not upset them at all. I didn’t expect an epic action movie but I expected something, well, better thought through even if the logic train had a shaky track. A few more explosions or some bullets or just sequences that were better staged even if the rest of the movie wasn’t but it just was weak all around.

There’s a real sense that the movie was a little on the haphazard side. Watching you can believe director Charles E. Sellier Jr. was winging it or something. They had an idea what they wanted to do but weren’t sure how to do it and they just kind of took the John Ford approach, and said “We’ll fix it in editing.” But you need talent to pull it off both in front of and behind the camera and there was not enough of both here.

In a genre known for violence, profanity, and a fare share of nudity or attractive women, this is largely devoid of that. It is heavy on ‘feel-good’ dialogue and speeches with a war-as-adventure vibe firmly entrenched. There is no sense of danger or things coming to a head in the climax. Even the realization by the duped kids was anticlimactic. You are not even worried when hostages are taken. It makes it all dull.

As an ‘80s bit of cinematic vigilantism it should have either been sillier or sleazier. Instead it anchored itself firmly in family-friendly which is an unusual move. The director Charles E. Sellier Jr. was behind The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams and Silent Night, Deadly Night so maybe those two extremes explain things.

The Annihilators had so many things working in its favor to become a guilty pleasure or enjoyable low-budget action film and it wasted them all. Not worth your time.