Combining kids and military matters is nothing new. Each year, thousands of American youth are sent to private military academies. Young kids enlist, participate in JROTC programs, and play paintball. Children can become experts in strategy and weaponry thanks to innumerable video games, tabletop miniature games, and the like.
The most beloved American film in the “children’s crusade” subgenre (youth + military) is Red Dawn (1986, John Milius). This is an established fact and cannot be debated. As former VF contributor Jimmy has put it, Red Dawn is “one of the best documentaries ever made.” I am very interested in the “children’s crusade” films, probably because I was never allowed to do boy scouts. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I like all films in which youth become violent (can’t quite digest all of those 3 Ninjas sequels), I like most of them. I’d like to take this opportunity to set the record straight and shed some light on the fact that there are two films called Toy Soldiers, both of which have their charms. Without further ado, “The Toy Soliders Symposium!”
Toy Soldiers (1983)-
This is the comparatively unknown version of Toy Soldiers. A group of vacationing college students (including Tim Robbins, Jim Greenleaf [one of the main characters from Joysticks {1983}], and Terri Garber) are cruising the waterways, en route by yacht to Panama. The captain of the vessel, Sarge (Jason Miller, of Exorcist fame), is thrown overboard as a prank. While he catches up, one of one of the youth gets hurt and a some of the party goes ashore. Though picked up by a priest and taken toward a village, the truck is hijacked by rebel outlaws – let by a Che Guevara look-alike, who happens to be incahoots with corrupt Colonel Lopez (Rodolfo de Anda) – and our American gang is taken hostage. Rich girl Amy (Garber) escapes thanks to the Sarge. Once the remaining youth make it back to the U.S., the government refrains from direct action in finding the prisoners. Amy takes matters into her own hands, raising funds, buying arms, and leading a small team back to the site of the kidnapping. Hyperbole aside, they are the TOY SOLDIERS.
Toy Soldiers is clearly an exploitation picture. It was distributed by New World Pictures, features a ridiculous premise, and has gratuitous shots of breasts and blood. It was made during a time in which Cold War fears started to become displaced to the United States’ more immediate neighbors. South and Central America (as a lump sum) were vilified in the popular imagination. As drugs permeated the public sphere, all blame turned south. Central American nations were seen as corrupt, backward, and eager to harbor subversives. The insanity of some of these blanket assumptions was remedied by some of the smarter films of the era – especially Alex Cox’s Walker (1987) – but the anxieties lingered on. Toy Soldiers was a film with ample pleasures for young American audiences. ‘Finally, a movie in which I can save my friends by “playing army,” all while thwarting the “bad guys” in the process.’ If you can get past the more incredulous bits, it is still a pretty fun romp. This Toy Soldiers feels a lot cheaper and more patched-up than the other. Its obscurity has to do with its totally marginalized premise and the fact that it really doesn’t have much to tell modern viewers. As an exercise in spotting some choice roles for familiar actors (Tim Robbins had better taste before 1989 than he does now!), Toy Soldiers is worth finding.
Toy Soldiers (1991) -
Child’s Play 3 wasn’t the only high-profile movie of 1991 to take place at a boarding school – Toy Soldiers pulls its weight, and then some. Just for the record, this film has no official connection to the film I just talked about, though both feature teens and twenty-somethings coming into contact with South American militants.
The Regis School is a haven for “trouble” students, kids who have been removed from other boarding schools because of disciplinary problems. Chief among them is Billy Tepper (Sean Astin!!!), a volatile dude with attitude to spare. His chief occupation seems to be aggravating Dean Parker (Louis Gossett Jr.!!!) who, despite being a dean, is actually the coolest guy ever. Sure, Billy and his mates – Joey Trotta (Wil Wheaton!!), to name the most luminous – are good kids at heart, but they have a really problem with authority. Trouble is, Columbian troublemaker Luis Cali (Andrew Divoff) is mad about his crime-loving father’s arrest. His pop has been removed to the United States and Luis wants him back. Cali and his crew sneak into the country (they are Columbian, yet enter the U.S. by way of driving across the U.S.-Mexican border) and invade the school in hopes of holding a federal judge’s son hostage. The kid had been removed, but the terrorists find plenty to lord over. Billy and his friends have rich dads (senators, major lawyers, contractors, you name it, they’re loaded), so the angry criminals hold them in their stead. Denholm Elliot is the school’s Headmaster and R. Lee Ermey plays, you guessed it, General Kramer.
The situation in this Toy Soldiers is flipped from the other one. Ambiguous South American criminals (drug emperors, I presume) come to the United States to take kids hostage rather than holding them on their own turf. If the kids in the other Toy Soldiers didn’t really have to learn anything other than not to get drunk, these youth need to learn how to cooperate. Though this film does not have the exploitation elements of the other film, it is plenty violent and presents a canvas of foul-mouthed, smart-alecky teens who love nothing more than to crack-wise.
In the end, “Toy Soldiers” came to be associated with really fascinating premises to the right kind of audiences. If you are between 15 and 35 and give a care about cult actors, take the plunge.
Bonus: Watch/listen to the song version of “Toy Soldiers.” Again, this doesn’t really have anything to do with what I have been talking about. It just happens to be one of the best songs of the 1980s.
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