Noah Blake | Through the Shattered Lens

The 2021 film, The Rebels of PT-218, takes place in 1943.

At the height of World War II, the Allies are on the verge of invading Italy and moving into Europe. General Omar Bradley (played by William Baldwin, who looks like Alec but sounds like Stephen) orders the SS Lawton, a small torpedo boat to help secure the port of Solano. It won’t be easy. The Atlantic Ocean is full of German U-boats and the Lawton is built to move cargo, not fight battles. But the Lawton is still the most powerful boat in the area and General Bradley believes in the abilities of the Lawton’s commander, Lt. William Snow (Eric Roberts).

However, Snow is eager to get into combat and defeat the Germans. In fact, he’s so gung ho to fight that some of Bradley’s assistants feel that Lt. Snow’s judgment can’t be trusted. Commander Barnes (Noah Blake) tells Ensign Kenneth Ford (Geoff Meed) to keep an eye on Snow and do everything he can to keep Lt. Snow on track.

The men of the SS Lawton, meanwhile, just want to man the guns, launch the torpedoes, and stop the Germans. They’re from all over the United States but they’ll be familiar to anyone who has ever seen a war film. Some of them are naive. Some of them are cocky and streetwise. One of them is played by Danny Trejo! Trejo plays Cookie, a former gunner turned cook. He delights in serving chorizos for dinner. Cookie has a mustache and a pony tail, which definitely do not feel like they would be within Navy regulations. After Cookie is wounded in action, a crewman tosses Cookie a machete and Trejo smiles like a man who has waited his entire life for that exact moment.

Historical accuracy? Who needs historical accuracy when you’ve got Danny Trejo and Eric Roberts in the same movie? Obviously, both Roberts and Trejo are a bit too old for their roles. Cookie would have probably retired from the Navy long before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. As for Roberts, one has to worry about any officer who is clearly in his 70s and still hasn’t achieved a rank higher than lieutenant. When Snow expresses his ambition to be promoted, you have to wonder if he’s hoping to be the world’s oldest admiral.

This film is an attempt to do an epic war story on a budget and it doesn’t quite work. One never feels that any of the characters are waking up everyday with the knowledge that this could be the day that they die. The ship and all of the characters are remarkably clean and fresh-faced throughout the film, with none of the grime nor grit that would have given the story a realistic edge. That said, Danny Trejo gets a few good lines and it’s always fun to watch Eric Roberts play an authority figure. In the end, the important thing is that America won.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

Billy Ray Cyrus is Jack, a tough-as-nails former CIA agent who is still traumatized by his actions during Desert Storm and the murder of his wife by the international terrorist, Riotti (Benny Nieves).

Stop laughing.

I’ll admit that the idea of Billy Ray Cyrus, the most mild and unthreatening of mullet-headed country music stars, playing a CIA burnout who has killed countless men may sound like something to laugh about but … forget it, I’ve got nothing. Laugh all you want because it is ridiculous casting and, throughout the film, Billy Ray looks increasingly uncomfortable with the character’s R-rated antics. Sometimes, you have to do what you have to do, though. When this movie was made, it’d been seven years since Achy Breaky Heart and even one-hit wonders need to pay the bills. In 1999, reinventing Billy Ray Cyrus as a second-tier action star probably seemed like a good idea. Billy Ray may not be the most convincing CIA agent but he’s still more likable than Steven Seagal.

Billy Ray is sent undercover to a small town in Vermont. Somehow, by working as a bouncer at the local roadhouse, Billy Ray Cyrus is supposed to find a way to expose two local arms dealers, Lloyd (George “Buck” Flower) and Lloyd’s good for nothing son, Rolland (Noah Blake). Lloyd and Rolland are selling weapons to Riotti so this is personal for Billy Ray. But Billy Ray is also romancing Rolland’s ex-girlfriend, Kate (Deedee Pfeiffer) so it is personal for Rolland too.

As both an action hero and a film, Radical Jack isn’t all that radical and Billy Ray Cyrus never looks comfortable in any of the action scenes or the scenes where he makes out with Deedee Pfieffer but there are still plenty of explosions, fights, and chase scenes. Though she doesn’t have much romantic chemistry with Billy Ray, Deedee Pfieffer gives the best performance in the film, playing Kate as someone who knows that she deserves better than what life has given her. Radical Jack was produced by the same people who did Time Chasers and fans of that film will be happy to visit the exact same landing strip and hangar that was featured so heavily in that sci-fi epic. There’s also a twist at the end, which you’ll see coming from miles away and Billy Ray does something unexpectedly cruel with a hand grenade. Radical Jack did not make an action star out of Billy Ray Cyrus but, two years later, he showed an unexpected talent for comedy with his small role in Mulholland Drive. Seven years after playing a burned-out CIA assassin, Bill Ray Cyrus found new fame as Miley Cyrus’s father and Radical Jack would never ride again.