Enemy Unseen Reviews

While ENEMY UNSEEN is a largely traditional adventure yarn depicting modern campaigners versus poorly armed but canny natives, Greg Latter's screenplay does make some effort at explaining the tribal point of view. While on a photographic safari through some lands recently purchased by her father deep in the African bush, Roxanne Tangent (Angela O'Neill) witnesses and photographs an obscure tribe's ritual sacrifice of a young girl to the crocodiles that infest the swampy valley. In short order, Roxanne's traveling companion is killed and she's abducted by this group of natives. Through official channels, her father locates Steiger (Vernon G. Wells), a former army major, who agrees to gather some fellow Vietnam veterans together for a brief reconnaisance or a "reccee" in army slang. Steiger's team is an unusual mixture, since Steiger himself would appear Australian from his accent, whereas his American colleagues Josh (Stack Pierce) and Pencil (Greg Latter) are an African-American and Southern white. Roxanne's father, Gordon, as paymaster, insists on joining them and they meet up with a native guide Malanga (Ken Gampu), who can also serve as interpreter. Although the country is never named, to judge from the peculiar circumstances--the local authorities disclaim any responsibility or liability for the region now owned by Tangent--and accents, the locale is certainly one of the independent "black homelands" of South Africa. In keeping with the demands of the genre, this troupe is being watched at every move by the natives, who always manage to evade being seen by experienced campaigners with a local guide. Malanga can only recall that his own sister disappeared years ago in this "Crocodile Valley" where the mysterious locals are said to make human sacrifices to the carnivorous amphibians that line the banks. At their first nighttime encampment one of the campaigners is dragged by a crocodile through one of their own booby-traps and killed. A brief time later, Pencil is stunned by poison-tipped darts and falls prey to another of the local gods. Stunned by his losses, Steiger wants to "withdraw and regroup," but a passionate Gordon demands they continue the search for his daughter. Almost too predictably, it is the rash father who panics at the first sight of the natives and starts shooting wildly. Wounded by one of the poisoned darts, Steiger must rely upon Josh and Malanga, who disappears ostensibly for help. At this point subtitles are used to give the natives voice. They seem particularly confused by Josh, a black man who cannot speak their language and ask who they are and what they want. The locals even make a sharp and fine distinction between the men they've captured and the one who fired on them, killing the shaman's son. A fearful character with teeth filed to points, the shaman (Sam Ntsinyi) appears almost sympathetic as he mourns his dead son, despite the sacrifice shown earlier. From the captive Roxanne, Josh and Steiner learn that the tribe typically sacrifices its virgin young girls and then has to abduct new victims. And not just girls, since they prepare to give Steiger to the river gods before Malanga suddenly appears and frees him. The two retrieve their guns and stealthily prepare to free both Roxanne and Josh. Suddenly, it is the natives who can't seem to locate their foes and fall prey to their wiles. As the shaman prepares to sacrifice Roxanne, they strike and set the village ablaze, but manage to save a little girl from the flames, who turns out to be a niece to Malanga by his missing sister. In the fight that follows, the shaman is chewed up by his gods and the happy warriors return with Roxanne and the little girl upstream to more civilized parts. Predictable and cliched, ENEMY UNSEEN mines that aged vein of popular entertainment that dates back to Edgar Rice Burroughs with a touch of the modern military saga. The slang and shared references, like the camouflage fatigues and automatic weaponry and grenades, hint at Vietnam. The use of subtitles and the effort at being fair-minded in its characterization of the native tribe may be a reflection of both modern sensibility and the interest in popular anthropology, but it is not allowed to interfere with the gunplay and heroics. (Profanity.)