Review: VFW (2019)

VFW (2019)

Not rated

Score: 3 out of 5

A fairly insubstantial but still rather entertaining watch that I suspect will have quite a long life every Veterans' Day, VFW is a bloody action thriller that makes up for its lack of style and grace with tons of brutal violence, some great older B-movie and character actors getting to kick ass and take names, and a classic Rio Bravo/Assault on Precinct 13-style plot told well enough to grab my interest, all with a clear affection for its subject matter. Were a lot of characters rather shallow and carried more by their actors than the writing? Definitely. Was it clear that not a lot of thought was put into staging the action scenes (even before you start reading some of the horror stories about what it was like to film them)? Oh, absolutely. But as far as movies with this basic premise go, VFW more or less delivers what it promises, a throwback to lurid, brutal '80s crime thrillers about a tight-knit group of old war horses proving to a bunch of young punks that they've still got it.

VFW takes place in an unnamed American city (it was filmed in and around Dallas, so sure, let's go with that) that's plagued by the opioid epidemic, one where a highly addictive and deadly new drug has hit the streets: hype. Boz, a punk-rock gang leader operating out of an abandoned movie theater that's now a massive drug den, rules over both his enforcers and an army of junkies with an iron fist, killing anybody who crosses his path. One of those people is Lucy, who Boz tempts to jump to her death by throwing a vial of hype off a balcony and convincing her to jump, seemingly just for kicks. Unfortunately for Boz, Lucy's sister Elizabeth, or "Lizard", watched all of this, which causes her to sneak into his office and steal his entire stash of hype as revenge, fleeing across the street into a local Veterans of Foreign Wars post. There, a group of Vietnam veterans and longtime friends, plus the grumpy older Korea vet Abe Hawkins and a young, straight-laced Army Ranger named Shaun Mason who just got home from Iraq, are celebrating the birthday of the bar's owner and bartender Fred Parras, planning to head off later that evening to a strip club before their night is rudely interrupted by a young woman who barges through the door -- with some of Boz's goons chasing close behind and eager to start a fight. The vets, out of an obligation to help Lizard, take her in and settle in for a long siege by Boz, who sees the men protecting Lizard and, out of some kind of cockiness, decides that a bunch of aging veterans are gonna be easy quarry.

The older cast assembled for this film manage to elevate it above a dumb straight-to-video action flick. Stephen Lang, who proved in Avatar and Don't Breathe that age is no obstacle for him playing an intimidating villain, brings that same energy to a salty anti-hero who's seen it all in his many decades alive, a guy who's both told and heard many war stories with his buddies and others who've come into his bar. You get the sense that, given what he saw and went through in 'Nam, dropping a guy like him into a movie like this inevitably turns it from a horror movie into an action flick. The finer details of his backstory are kept rather broad, but Lang makes Fred convincing as a guy who's keeping a lot of that close to his chest for his own sake. The other standout for me was Martin Kove as Lou Clayton, the man among them who went on to the most financial success by becoming a used car salesman, and is exactly as sleazy as you'd expect from that job description. The token douchebag of the group who's dressed in a suit versus his friends' jackets and jeans, he's established trying to sell Fred a new truck to replace his old beater, and without spoiling anything, he causes a bucketload of problems for the group as he tries to finesse their way out of it. William Sadler and Fred Williamson also elevate characters who otherwise get little development beyond "Fred's grouchy friend" and "the really old guy", with Williamson in particular establishing himself as one of the most crazy-awesome guys in the movie with just one scene late in the game involving him and a brick of hype. The most important part was that I bought this men as a band of brothers whose shared experiences on the battlefield have left them with a bond as strong as family, as the four of them together made for an exciting crew.

The lack of depth for the characters was unfortunately apparent with the younger cast members who lacked the presence of the guys playing the older vets. All were good in their parts and sold their characters well enough, but they all faded into the background amidst the mayhem on display. I found Tom Williamson (no relation to Fred) and Sierra McCormick likable enough as Mason and Lizard, but they had little to do in those roles beyond play the "hyper-competent special forces veteran" or the "punk chick with a heart of gold", with the bits we get of deeper characters and family relations outside the world of the film largely falling by the wayside as the film goes on. This was especially a problem for the villains, who just came across as a faceless horde of junkies controlled by a clique of '80s-style "Quincy punks" straight out of a particularly R-rated anti-drug afterschool special. The film wanted me to hate the shit out of Boz and his leather-clad lieutenants, but they just felt too cartoonish in their villainy amidst the otherwise hyper-gritty, grindhouse-style action on display here.

On a technical level, this film was at its best when it reveled in blood and gore in its most vivid set pieces, and in the slower bits where the characters are shooting the shit. It's here where director Joe Begos' style, which I previously loved in Bliss, really shines, rich as it is in both vivid colors and dark contrast to lend a moody atmosphere to the besieged bar. One group kill involving a homemade grenade that dismembered an entire horde of Boz's junkies was a highlight, as was creative use of punji stake booby traps straight out of the jungles of Vietnam. It was here where I felt that the characters were back in the shit, reliving the most nightmarish experience of their lives. It was unfortunately in the more conventional action scenes, of which there were many, that Begos' style let the film down. He's a pro at setting the mood, but when it comes time to deliver the goods, the fight scenes turn into a mess of shaky-cam bathed in dim red light that's really dependent on the sight of bloody squibs and the sound of bones crunching to leave a mark. I can totally buy those horror stories I mentioned earlier about what it was allegedly like to film this, especially the claim that the fight scenes weren't exactly simulated and just had the actors beating the crap out of extras for real, because there's a difference between a real fight and one that looks exciting on screen. The best action filmmakers know the difference between the two and how to make the latter look like the former, while lesser ones either let the style overwhelm the realism or strain to cover up deficiencies in the fight choreography, the latter of which I think happened here. When this film was getting creative and going balls-out with its action, I was happily digging it, but when it tried to get down and dirty, it just felt ugly in a way that wasn't really that fun.

The Bottom Line

I expect VFW to get a lot of play among a certain type of "cool" older dad or uncle who supports the troops and loves old-school action. It could've used a few more go-arounds on the script and some actual fight choreography, but a great cast and solid style in its slower and showier moments make it worth a watch for action fans.