The Stick

A 'stick' is a small infantry detachment, and this one is used to browbeat the audience into realising that war is futile. No marks for originality of thought, then, nor for that matter for the director, who seems to be paying homage to Platoon. A bunch of Boer brutes (including, of course, a drug-crazed maniac) is sent on a search-and-destroy mission 'across the border'. When they encounter a zebra's head in a tree, their black tracker goes all funny, and when a witch doctor is shot all hell breaks loose. The naive voice-over is corny, but the veldt is stunningly photographed, and the action is full of nasty moments. Crude but effective.