Afghan Knights (2007)

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(Foreign Titles)

Tagline(s):	You Can't Fight What's in These Mountains.
	A Supernatural Battle for Survival!

Nomination Year: 2015

SYNOPSIS: Sgt. Pepper (yeah, really) is an ex Navy SEAL and former mercenary. A year ago, his mercenary team got their asses kicked in Afghanistan, resulting in a few deaths and Pepper's brother-in-law going MIA. Now, Pepper is a drunken, divorced PTSD case. But his former boss is offering a contract that pays $150,000 to help an Afghan warlord get out of the country. Even better, it's near where BiL went MIA, so Pepper can do a little looking for him while he's there.

Pepper agrees and gets the band back together. Turns out they're all substance-abusing PTSD cases with broken relationships, an unexpectedly sensitive anti-war sentiment that will be completely ignored once the "assembling the team" phase of the movie is over. At their meeting point in Pakistan, their boss sticks them with Nash, a British substance-abusing PTSD case. He also announces that he needs to stay behind to coordinate things, by which he means "spend the next week having non-stop sex with a Pakistani woman who doesn't even rate a line of dialog."

They head for the Afghan border, where their bribe money proves insufficient and Nash kills a bunch of Pakistani border guards, ensuring that they'll have to seek an alternate route home. They pick up the warlord and his wife and head north for the Uzbek border. Unfortunately, during a potty break, their convoy is destroyed by a CIA drone strike and they're forced to hide in a cave, the entrance to which immediately gets collapsed by the drone strike, trapping them underground.

Even worse, the cave complex is haunted by Mongol warriors. See, it turns out that the real reason behind both last year's mission and this one is that the boss somehow knows the immensely valuable arrows of Genghis Khan are hidden in this cave and the whole thing is a ruse to get the unwitting (except for Nash) team to go there and recover them. Unfortunately, the arrows also contain the vengeful spirits of Genghis and his warriors and will try to kill anybody who gets close.

Will they find the missing brother-in-law? Can the mercs evade the marauding Mongol warriors? Will the boss ever stop having sex long enough to organize their rescue? Does anyone actually care at this point? I think we all know the answers to those questions.

Greg Pearson

Smithee Award Nominations

"Alas, Poor Yorick"

But Aren't the Walls We Build Inside the Most Harmful? No.

Our intrepid group of soldiers enters a cave and finds a young boy with a drum. After trying to coax a response from him for a while, they get one...he starts banging on the drum and opening his mouth preternaturally wide in some sort of supernatural sonic attack! The poor soldier runs right into a wall and breaks his neck, for no reason.

"Cutting Butter With A Chainsaw"
Are You Done? "Are you done?" No. No, he's not.

Directors

Director	Claim to Fame
Allan Harmon	Directed 28 episodes of "Untold Stories of the ER," but now mainly directs made- for-TV holiday mush flicks.

Cast

Actor	Character	Claim to Fame
Steve Bacic	Sgt. Pepper	A looong list of credits, mainly bit parts, though played Telemachus Rhade on "Andromeda," Prince Barin on "Flash Gordon," and Sean Sonus on "Arrow."
Michael Madsen	Cooper	Handsome actor with long pedigree who played Mr. Blonde in Reservoir Dogs and was in Kill Bill. Also Cher's half-brother- in- law.
Colin Lawrence	J.T.	Handsome African-British actor who played "Preacher" as well as Coach Clayton on "Riverdale," Janko on "iZombie," and "Skulls" on "Battlestar Galactica" (the new one).
Steven Cree Molison	Rick	Daryl Fraser on "Blackstone."
Chris Kramer	Jonathan	Morgan Pym on "The Collector."
Pete Antico	Joey	Was Underboss on "Batwoman."
Vince Murdocco	Frank	Made his film debut as the title role in the softcore porno Flesh Gordon Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders.
Francesco Quinn	Amad	Son of actor Anthony Quinn. Which landed him the parts of Rah in Platoon and Tomas Del Cerro on "The Young and the Restless."
Gary Stretch	Nash	British boxer turned Bad actor. Was Logan Reynolds on "Girls of Sunset Place."
Mig Macario	Monk #1	Bashful the Dwarf on "Once Upon a Time" as well as Cloudio in Velvet Buzzsaw.
Aaron Au	Monk #2	Was a ninja of The Hand in Elektra and a Tooth Fairy in The Tooth Fairy, the scary one. No, the OTHER scary one, without Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.


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