THE AMBUSHERS: PART 4

THE AMBUSHERS: PART 4

Lovey doesn’t mess around and she heads straight to where Helm is, which is being massaged by a tall blonde beauty. Hang on, Helm was told Lovey had just arrived, he then went and had a fencing lesson and is now being massaged and this took, what, all of 3 minutes! Just how quick was that fencing lesson? Anyway Lovey is all business, which doesn’t please Helm, and has even brought him his toothbrush and some mouthwash; presumably he’ll drink that later.

They adjourn to have the briefing in the steam room and luckily Helm doesn’t have to read any documents or take notes in there. It’s a pretty crap steam room in that there are only two wafts of kettle steam in a large room but it does allow Lovey and Helm to start making out. He asks her for McDonald’s message and she says she doesn’t have it. Great, so as well as a needless long distance call, they sent a government employee out to a top secret installation with no message. Man, the Johnson administration just pissed money away.



But no, Lovey does have a message, or at least her bra does. Unbeknownst to her, McDonald has recorded a message in her bra which activates as Helm tries to take it off. OK, so let’s just recap here before my brain melts: Lovey wears a lace bra in a steam room and it has a tape recorded message concealed in it which activates when Matt freakin’ Helm takes it off. And they wonder why Apollo got cancelled early. Anyway, Helm is to investigate what happened to Sheila because she’s the key to the greatest crisis the US has ever faced. Yes, because banging Sheila is the only way to get to the bottom of this mystery and they’ve found just the right man for the job.

But before he can work on the greatest crisis the US has ever faced, he’s still following the pattern of this movie so far: Do a bit of training, bang the instructor, do a bit more training, bang another instructor. This time he’s in a fake train compartment with a middle aged man, an old lady with a scowl on her face and a beautiful girl. Yeah, I think what’s going to happen next....anyway, an announcer says that one of the people in the train compartment is an enemy agent with a concealed message and Helm has to work out who it is. So everyone sits still and looks at each other shiftily, then the lights go out to simulate going into a tunnel. When they come back on, everyone has changed places and Helm is asleep. Then this is repeated until at the third time the lights come back on, the beautiful girl has been undressed and Helm is holding the secret message. No explanation is given as to how he figured the girl was the spy, my guess is that Helm just wanted a grope and got lucky with the message.



That bit of training over, everyone leaves the compartment except for the middle aged man who pulls a gun on Helm. He demands to know what Helm knows about the flying saucer craft and Helm says something like “harruw y’know I nggonna divulgshe informabbleubble”. The lights go out, shots are fired and when they go back on, the middle aged guy is dead, Helm is lying next to him (drunk) and McDonald, also drunk, is in the compartment holding a gun and saying “nowww you knowsh why (hic) you’re here”. So let me work this out...McDonald phones from Washington to the base in the desert to say that Lovey has a message for Matt, concealed in her bra, but he’s decided to fly out and meet with Helm anyway and shows up in the nick of time. No wonder Dino’s plastered in order to get through this movie!

McDonald asks Helm if he’s ever seen a flying saucer...sure, they come right before the pink elephants and the millions of crawling spiders. Anyway, McDonald goes on to drawl that the government has built a prototype which is powered by electro-magnetic forshe...I mean, force. It’s been stolen and Sheila, the test pilot, was left as a basket case. Matt, ever the enlightened, can’t believe they put a girl in the craft to fly it but McDonald orders Helm to get close to her and try to find out what happened. “She won’t let a man go near her, but that’s never stopped you” says McDonald...this movie was obviously written before “no means no” came into the language. Helm then suggests to McDonald that there’s a double agent in ICE helping the enemy...well, he would if he understood spy lingo but instead it comes out as “shomebody on our shide.....ishn’t”

Back at the base, Government Issue Gil has done wonders and restored Sheila’s hair and skin colour, but she’s freaking out when an orderly tries to give her a sedative injection. Helm bursts in and knocks him out and so ends the mystery of the double agent. Why waste film footage on building genuine mystery and tension? He cradles Sheila in his arms and hey presto, she’s back to normal. So two plot points solved in one go; that’s efficiency. Actually, it’s a problem this movie has right throughout. Often a potentially interesting plot point begins, only to have it fizzle out by the next scene. The story of “The Ambushers” is one long fizzle so get used to having your hopes for something interesting to happen dashed.

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