The film begins in the middle of the action and the events building up to it are narrated to the audience over the course of a single dialogue exchange between the general and the captain. 10-15min invested on that through visuals would have definitely helped.

Though the core plot of tunnel warfare is nothing new, the story nonetheless is not gripping. The screenplay is also equally lacking and at places especially toward the end, it falls apart failing to keep viewers on the edge. Even the editing at the end becomes wayward with unnecessary cuts that's immediately obvious. Acting is decent and its only the likes of Eckhart that impede this movie from becoming another forgettable B-Grade school project.

The show starts with a place and date, 1966. In the background, an F-111. That didn't even enter service until a year later and didn't come to Vietnam until 1968.

There then follows a sequence of macho macho man orders and posturing. So lame, it's beyond parody.

The Special Forces captain flies to a base to receive a special secret package. Why he can fly in and not fly back out again using the same helicopter (or even any helicopter) having collected the famous package is never explained.

Upon arrival there is more screaming authoritarianism - clearly the script writers haven't ever been on a military base. Laughably, the OC for this base is a corporal. Whose mean keep calling him "Sir". His demeanour is that of an earnest but ridiculous one pip wonder, but even so, the "Special Forces" captain does nothing but belittle him and scream at him. Whilst also addressing him as if he is in command of a 50 man detachment...

Next, a guy manning a machine gun and whizzing the iron sights around spots two US Special Forces snipers in full ghillie suits about 200M out from his position and challenges them.

They stand up and assert that they have "the package", a book marker "Secret" inside a plastic map case. When asked if the enemy (who knew that the Vietnamese marked secret documents in English?) knew that they had this document, the snipers earnestly responded that there were 8 of them, implying that 6 comrades had died (or been captured). Having not answered a straight question with a straight answer, the hitherto highly strung SF captain says he needs to arrange some "R&R" for the newly arrived hero's.

Whereupon someone (another trembling nerd engineer) accidentally discharges his weapon, causing the SF captain to drop the "Secret" documents in the mud so he can regain his title of the most screamy man in Vietnam. Another trembling nerd (for this is what combat engineers are according to this film, or perhaps are reduced to by the overwhelming machismo of the SF presence) picks it up and has a gun out in his face by one of the "sniper" team.

As the captain resumes screaming at the other corporal (one of whom discharged the gun and is made out to be far more junior in rank than the other who is again made out to be the detachment OC), I decide that the 20 minutes lost to date is more than enough.

Read this and save yourself the 18 minutes of ridiculous rubbish.

Had the convoluted, disjointed, unremarkable and tedious screenplay from the three writers been cut down to about 80 mins, this may have been more enjoyable. Certainly more enjoyable than having to listen to cliched tropes and long dragged out and repetitive scenes of dead end turns in an underground maze. I get that this was a low-mid budget B film, and although I have seen much worse, this film actually could've been more enjoyable with better directing and major script cuts and edits. The cinematography was decent, and surprisingly for a B film, the score was on point. Even much of the acting was better than I expected. Nice idea, but sadly, terrible execution.