Soldier of Fortune, Inc.

POSTED BY: cljohnston108
UPDATED: Thursday, February 22, 2007 14:17
VIEWED: 2770
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CLJOHNSTON108

Wednesday, February 21, 2007 6:45 PM

Does anybody remember this tremendous show from 1997 that starred Mark "Badger" Sheppard & Melinda "Nandi" Clarke?



Brad Johnson


Melinda Clarke


Tim Abell


Réal Andrews


Mark Sheppard

Technical Advisor was Harry Humphries.
http://www.navyseals.com/community/navyseals/famous_ns_humphries.cfm
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0402051/
http://www.smokemag.com/0398/harry.htm

In it's first season, it was one of the finest military series to ever air.
But then things went horribly awry...

Soldier of Fortune, Inc. (1997)
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0118469/

Quote:

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If it ain't broke, don't fix it, 17 May 2002
Author: jbanks1372

Here's a good example of that tried-and-true rule. One person called the show an Intelligent A-Team, and, for the first season anyway, that was the best possible description you could get. Five HIGHLY trained and skilled mercenaries, four ex-SpecOps soldiers and the lady an ex CIA field agent/troubleshooter. Officially, they're guns-for-hire; independant SpecOps, bodyguards, and security consultants. Unofficially getting most of their money and jobs from a backdoor of the State Department, working missions where secrecy and official deniability is paramount. If they're caught, the US government doesn't even know they exist.

The first season was spectacular. The actors were all form-fitted for the roles and the action had Jerry Bruckheimer written all over it. If you wanted to see what real military special operations were like, this was as close as Hollywood can get. Then they screwed it up....

In order to spice the show up and add some color, the Powers-that-be dumped the very professional Mark Sheppard and Real Andrews and replaced them with conciderably less professional but more colorful Eigenberg as a mouthy ex-DEA agent and Dennis Rodman as an independant freelancer who occasionally works with the Team (Rodmans schedule prevented him from committing full-time to the show). Within two months the show went from an intelligent A-Team to an A-Team Wannabe. The quality of the show dropped rapidly and so did the number of watchers. It wasn't long until the show was finally cancelled altogether. As it was, Soldier of Fortune was great. If they hadn't tried improving it, it could've lasted a good five years more.

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Quote:

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An intelligent A-Team, 20 December 1999
Author: Fred M. Hung from New York, NY

Oddly, I found myself actually watching this show late night during its syndication runs. What confounds me is how a moderately enjoyable light fare like this can be cancelled, and yet the absolute junk of Walker: Texas Ranger and Martial Law is still in production.

In any case the most I can say of Soldier of Fortune, at least in its 1st season, is that it's a smarter and grittier A-Team. Villains do die and some members of the team actually are believable as former SpecOps operatives, particularly worthy of note is Tim Abell, who himself was an Army Ranger. Brad Johnson was born to play a military man and Melinda Clarke is stunningly gorgeous.

Jerry Bruckheimer puts his usually polished, right-wing slant on episodes. Themes like Patriotism, Self-sacrifice, and Honor are routinely addressed though not necessarily explored to any depth. At the end of a few episodes, I did feel like waving a flag.

Like I said, this is not like reading Proust, but it was enjoyable on late night syndication. After Dennis Rodman joined in Season 2, the show became truly ridiculous. By moving production to Montreal and trying to create a more "hip" crew, the creators destroyed what I thought wa

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