The best John Phillip Law’s war movies

Tim Burstall directs then-up-and-comers Mel Gibson and Sam Neill in this action-packed Cannes Film Festival selection about the grim realities of World War II, a gritty drama based on actual events. Sent to rescue survivors from the site of a plane crash in the South Pacific, Capt. P.G. Kelly (Gibson) and his elite squad of Australian commandos must keep tabs on a defecting Japanese official who could hold the secret to peace.

When a Soviet submarine gets stuck on a sandbar off the coast of a New England island, its commander orders his second-in-command, Lieutenant Rozanov, to get them moving again before there is an international incident. Rozanov seeks assistance from the island locals, including the police chief and a vacationing television writer, while trying to allay their fears of a Communist invasion by claiming he and his crew are Norwegian sailors.

Spend time on both sides of World War I, partly with German flying ace Baron Manfred Von Richthofen (John Phillip Law), aka "The Red Baron," and his colorful "flying circus" of Fokker fighter planes, during the time from his arrival at the war front to his death in combat. On the other side is Roy Brown of the Royal Air Force, sometimes credited with shooting Richthofen down.

THE SERGEANT is the story of the dark inner struggle of Master Sergeant Albert Callan to overcome the overwhelming attraction he feels for one of his charges. In the staid and stifling environment of a post-World War II army post in France, Callan's deeply repressed attraction to other men surfaces when he encounters handsome Private Swanson. Maintaining the rugged "man's man" image of a war hero, Callan barks orders to his underlings. Later, lonely in his solitude, he recalls the frightening experiences of war and the events that led to this crossroads. Filled with self-loathing and unable to act on the natural attraction he feels for Swanson, Callan's affection festers into antagonism. He pushes Swanson constantly with verbal assaults and undeserved punishments.

A group of Vietnam vets are sent to Southeast Asia to destroy drug-smuggling operations in the Golden Triangle. When they get there, they find that many of the drug gangs are run by other Vietnam vets.