Of Troma head chief Lloyd Kaufman’s many quirks, the one that most mystifies me is why he’s so proud of Troma’s War. It’s his WORST movie. The plot is confusing, the premise is idiotic and the characters are about as interesting as a pile of toenail clippings. It’s a film run purely on the fuel of its theme, which is the regular people of good old Tromaville (a cross-section of which has survived an airplane crash on a jungle island ravaged by guerrilla warfare carried out by a variety of extremist groups) vs. the seedy, shady, profiteering rest of the world. Leaders are never to be trusted. The wealthy are snakes. A leather-faced old lady who just wants to live in peace is worth five war-mongers. I get it. I even agree with it. Too bad that the movie could put a speed-freak to sleep.
Still, Kaufman insists (in his DVD commentary, at least) that this was supposed to be Troma’s mainstream breakthrough. The only reason why it tanked, he says, was due to the MPAA, who insisted on cuts of the film’s gut-spilling violence, fully restored on the Director’s Cut release. The evil big business cartels simply wouldn’t tolerate this feast of blood, corny jokes and a villain covered in comical AIDS-related lesions and who kills people in battle by having sex with them.
Lloyd Kaufman is out of his mind. That’s why he’s great and that’s why this movie sucks.