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Under the bigoted tutelage of Sergeant Vic Hollowborn (Michael Paré), a group of ragtag soldiers spend their nights razzing each other. But during the day, they become the tunnel rats, members of an elite corps who delve into the numerous pathways running under the jungle above. Home to the Viet Cong and their various conspirators, it is up to these men to seek out and secure these routes, lest the enemy use them for ambush. Among the doomed company are a tightly wound Corporal (Wilson Bethel), a gung-ho Sergeant (Brad Schmidt), and a dozen or so privates who just want to make it back home alive. After the horrific hanging of a prisoner, many begin to wonder about Hollowborn's command. There is little time to contemplate his actions, however. The enemy is right below, and ready to strike.
Tunnel Rats is a slasher film with the Viet Cong taking the place of Jason Voorhees. It's a splatter fest disguised as a guarded, outsider's take on American's involvement in Southeast Asia. Boll, playing passive if judgmental jurist here, is clearly siding against the old Red, White, and Blue. Our fresh faced boys are depicted as self-centered, arrogant, scared, unscrupulous, and in the end, ready to quit in the face of danger. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Tunnel Rats isn't out to argue for the nobility of the U.S. grunt. Instead, Boll tries to balance things, making the Vietnamese as cutthroat and callous as possible. In fact, with the Americans as victims, the brutality of the war is really brought home.
Too bad there are no real characters here to care for. Boll tries to give us a couple of carnage red herrings, including a Jewish recruit that everyone just hates. We keep waiting for the moment when this predicted casualty is picked off. We keep waiting... and waiting... and waiting. Same with the Corporal who appears to be cracking up -- even in his sleep. The desperation in his eyes has him pegged as an early victim. His eventual comeuppance is oddly prophetic. As Neil Marshall did in The Descent, Boll makes excellent use of the underground backdrop. While some of the sequences are a bit too dark, the claustrophobic feel, especially to those with such fears, will be all too real.
Sure, toward the end, Boll dumps restraint to go Rambo 2008 on his cast (the Unrated Director's Cut DVD clearly adds a lot more mindless bloodshed), and the results really elevate Tunnel Rats' sense of dread. Instead of holding back on the slaughter, the decision to drown us in nonstop arterial spray turns the proverbial concept of war as hell into something quite literal. Sure, there are stumbles along the way, reasons why Boll will never be an A-list filmmaker financed by major media outlets. But as an example of what he can do when he's not stinking up the joint almost on purpose, Tunnel Rats is very good -- and that's amazing, considering who's receiving said accolade.
