Gold Raiders (1982) User Reviews

Absolutely terrific is some ways, while utterly terrible in others. B-List Gold!

[Idiot-Deluxe · 5/10 · 21 September 2020]

Goldraiders is the epitome of a mixed bag and is entirely prototypical for the era - to point of being textbook. It's quality (or lack of it) is simply all over the place, in some scenes it's intensely entertaining, whereas in others it completely falls flat. Starring the dependable B-lister Robert Ginty and a supporting cast of even lesser known actors (for some this is their sole acting credit) join his ranks and form an "elite crack commando unit" and seek to recover lost gold in jungles of Thailand. Though I find this movie to be quite inconsistent as a whole, but don't worry because there's plenty of fun to be had.

Some of the movies strong suits are as follows:

1: Thee awesomely villainous and over-the-top general with the mustache (something all proper movie villains should have) and his remarkably evil gravelly voice, which is used to great effect as he delivers most of the movies best lines. 2: The shoot-em-up scenes are well done, but not award winning, replete with airborne knives and even some hatchets and are complemented by some good old blood-packs - and not that crap, that computer-generated-red-paint-stuff that's added in post, typically used in modern movies. 3: The dialog, oh the dialog... The dialog for this film is so badly written AND delivered, well...it will have you chuckling away, I know I did. 4: Sarah Langenfeld (never heard of her either) was quite a nice piece, she has a wet t-shirt/semi-nude scene which comes roaring into view in the middle of the movie and is one of the most abrupt scene transitions you'll ever see, with jarring suddeness and zero subtlety - TERRIBLE EDITING! 5: Solid underwater SCUBA action scene, not entirely dissimilar to what's seen in 007's Thunderball - just not as good. 6: The goofy motorcycle/gyrocopter that's powered, curiously enough, by a "special kind of crystal" that NASA uses to power a "space ship". Whether it's driving or flying that crap-tas-tic contraption will have you in stitches - good stuff. 7: The jungle scenery is refreshing and pleasing to the eye, not a fast food joint or titty bar seen anywhere in this flick, just war machines and bloodshed really.

On the downside there are several boring scenes throughout the film that you'll have to sit through to get to the end, great for bathroom breaks. But for a Robert Ginty movie Goldraiders is a top-of-the-line production and it has, very much, a Cannon Films feel to it and on that note if you're a fan of 80's action films I'd also recommend his "Exterminator" movies. Again, Goldraiders is simply B-List Gold. Period.

So bad it becomes one of the funniest movies of all time.

[grimsi · 18 February 1999]

This is the worst movie I have ever seen and that makes it also one of my favorites. Every single scene is so ridiculous that it becomes very, very funny in every way. This is also one of the first movies I bought because my friends and I could spend hours and hours watching it over and over again, analyzing it and laughing. I recommend it to everyone that would like to see a movie made by and with mistakes.

Deserves to be in the All Time Bad Movie Hall of Shame

[zardoz-13 · 1/10 · 28 May 2005]

"Gold Raiders" deserves to be in the All-Time Bad Movie Hall of Shame. This egregious shlock lacks any redeeming features, except that everything goes terribly, horribly, hilariously awful. Robert Ginty of "The Exterminator" movies must have needed a pay check and a vacation, since it doesn't appear that anything else could have attracted him to this shoddy saga about the recovery of a fortune in Swiss gold from the jungle. Ginty as Mark Banner joins up with a ragtag group of Philipinos that are dispatched to bring back the gold after a plane shot down the cargo plane transporting it. Our heroes finds themselves squared off against a Communist commander who isn't beneath shooting his own men with the occasion dictates. He qualifies as a classic villain because he wears a mustache, shaves his head like all good evil bad guys, and enjoys rough sex with abducted women. The high point of this pointless adventure thriller comes when our nasty villain finishes having sex with one poor female and turns around to screw his fake wooden leg back on to his body. Inexplicably, the villain's pet German shepherd decides on impulse to snatch up the leg in his jaws and hightail it. Our hopping mad bad guy pursues the pooch and fires a couple of shots at the thieving canine that eventually discards the commander's leg. One incredibly schlocky line of dialogue goes something like this: "You're too beautiful a woman to be a sadist." Our never-say-die heroes embark on a journey of hardship, lessened somewhat when Mark Banner unveils a motorcycle powered by crystal fuel cells (this bikes smokes horribly) and it comes equipped with a powered para-sail that turns it into a flying motorcycle, armed as the case is with rockets. Probably the most incredible feat occurs when our hero rides his bike across a gorge on one flimsy steel cable. Like the other commentators have observed about "Gold Raiders," it suffers from poor dubbing. When I mean poor dubbing, not only do the lines rarely match the mouths, but virtually everybody sounds like they were dubbed by people of an entirely different nationality, making the lines doubly incongruous. A Filipino guy sounds like an American golf announcer with a deep, heavy accent. Improbable and sometimes bloodthirsty, "Gold Raiders" robs the bottom of the barrel. Truly, this is a movie that should be reserved for special occasions when you want to treat somebody to a genuinely rotten movie. Oh, yes, check out the phony looking fishing scene and the giant shark-like fish that the Filipino's fishermen harpoon.

An unbelievable film

[Jonsi · 2/10 · 31 October 2000]

This movie has got to be one of the worst films ever made. It's extremely poorly acted, the script just couldn't be worse - all scenes are ridiculously stupid - let alone all the dialogues, the special effects are as if they were executed by small children and so on. In fact I could go on pointing out its flaws for ages.

But this film also is one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. It is one of the best - if not THE best - "so bad it's good" films I have ever laid my eyes on. I regularly watch it with my friends and we never tire of talking about it. No matter how often you watch it you can always find a new example of extremely bad film-making.

Those who hate poor movies should stay far away from this one, but those who can laugh at all the catastrophe should definitely check it out. They won't be disappointed.

I can't give this film more than 2/10 although it is as funny as I have described. I would have given it 1/10 but the fun factor raised the grade. In my opinion it would not be fair to give it any higher a grade - no matter how funny it is - it is just so bad.

Robert Ginty cleans up Thailand with rad motorcycle

[oraklon · 6/10 · 17 April 2009]

Nothing too exiting here but a pretty entertaining thai action/adventure romp with an international cast (well... Burt Reynolds seemed to have had other obligations but they did get the lovably lame Robert Ginty, looking as wimpy as ever, and a cute caucasian girl who's acting abilities are limited to looking angry and/or horny whatever takes place in the movie... hey, good enough for me). As often when there's more than one county involved in the production we get an clichéd espionage story with a gold treasure that many parts are after - my guess is they were reaching for sort of a mixture between James Bond and Rambo with some local thai spice to make it exotic for foreign sales. We get some dumb dubbing, a high body count with lots of juicy squibs, a glide-flying motorcycle with a built-in rocket launcher (sadly the only gadget, but a good one indeed!), great evil communists, a character named Porn - who gets sick and is replaced by Penporn (did the writers see Café Flesh? ) and best of all - an underground Mario Bava-esquire lit cave filled with fat, super-duper-mega evil vampire bats with gleaming red eyes! Best vampire bats ever. But maybe I oversell it now, the film do have some obvious problems that makes land at "enjoyable B movie" rather than "trash action classic". Especially the pacing and cutting feels very... thai (judging from the few other 70s and 80s thai films i've seen). Even though there's action and excitement in almost every scene the movie still drags a lot in parts, and it's a bit overlong too. Still worth checking out for fans of trashy 80s action Asian B films though, it gets a mild recommendation from me.

The Swedish video release I saw had a perfect widescreen print and has the line "The Exterminator man is back" all over the front, back and side of the cover. They even renamed the film GOLDRAIDERS (The Exterminator Man is back!) on the tape label. You've gotta miss the early days of video when even bloody Robert Ginty was a selling name!

Gold Raiders is a movie we think most people will like - especially if you don't take it too seriously.

[tarbosh22000 · 6/10 · 21 May 2021]

When a plane goes down in the middle of the jungles of Thailand carrying millions of dollars in gold, a ragtag group led by Mark (The Gint) faces adventure and much peril as they try to retrieve it. Helping him along the way is Cordelia (Langenfeld). However, making their journey even harder is the evil, cigar-chomping commie General (is there any other kind?), named (we think) Korn (???), and he's sending his men after the gold. Who will raid the gold: the good guys or the commies? Find out today!

Gold Raiders is a fun movie that's more on the adventure side of things than straight action. The sense of fun at work here is due in large part to the dubbing, which is laugh-out-loud funny. There are wacky fights, a surprisingly high body count, and some of the necessary inventiveness that comes from "third-world"-style filmmaking. Filmmaker P. Chalong probably didn't have a lot of resources at his disposal - but that didn't stop him from creating a pre-Cyclone (1987) futuristic bicycle that's also a hang-glider and shoots missiles! Both that and the sinister cave bats with the red glowing eyes are some of the details that make Gold Raiders stand out.

Of course, it has the always-likable Ginty leading the pack. Although we don't quite know whose voice it really was. It seems he saw a chance to go to Thailand and nabbed it. Perhaps he figured no one would ever see this movie - not that there's anything to be ashamed of here - but, amazingly enough, the great VHS label Media released it in the U. S. In the 80's, Ginty was riding high on the success of the Exterminator films, and Gold Raiders promotional materials made sure everyone knew this.

While the plot is pretty flimsy (you gotta love the evil General screaming about "capitalist imperialists!!!") - no one should get really hung up on the plot as long as the charmingly homemade-by-necessity effects are on display, including the nifty blood effects. Add to that some picturesque Bangkok locations, and you have a night of silly entertainment at its best. But there's a caveat...

In its quest to seemingly recreate the work of Sergio Leone, Gold Raiders is just too long. Leone can justify creating a longer film. Chalong isn't quite up to his masterful skill level. The running time is absurdly almost two hours. The climax is really cool...but then it keeps going and going.

If all the fat was cut from this movie and the climax was in the right place, Gold Raiders might be more well known and put in the pantheon of "watch it with your buddies" movies. You can still - and should - do that, of course, but be aware you'll be there for longer than you'd expect.

Besides the lengthiness, Gold Raiders is a movie we think most people will like - especially if you don't take it too seriously.