Lieutenant Jeffrey Knight, a new officer from the United States Military Academy, is airlifted to an outpost in Vietnam, where he meets his platoon, a group of tough-witted veterans of the war.

Knight is airlifted back to his platoon's outpost but is not greeted by his men and finds his gear missing from his quarters, as they did not expect him to return.

Back on patrol, the platoon is attacked by heavy Vietcong (VC) forces and Parker is hit by mortar fire.

McNamara then arrives with his squad and the group repels the enemy who retreats towards Sergeant Roach, who carries a shotgun and is considered the platoon's toughest soldier.

The platoon prepares for the attack and shoots off flares to illuminate the battlefield showing the Viet Cong advancing on them with an enormous force.

Sergeant Hayes uses his claymores and Knight calls for an airstrike to repel the enemy, but the platoon suffers heavy casualties in fending off the attack.

Captain Killinsky explains the rest of the Viet Cong battalion they fought off during the night is nearby, and outlines a plan to attack the enemy.

The film received mixed reviews, including criticism for being an imitation of Oliver Stone's 1986 war drama Platoon.

Travis also praised the film's leading man Michael Dudikoff "for turning in the best performance of his career by a substantial margin.

It's all very pre-determined and becomes a fairly dry watch with little to cause one to invest in the drama, while also eschewing lots of the Cannon Films trademark excess," and ended his review stating "At worst, it's boring.

In that same month, Austin Trunick of Under the Radar Magazine wrote a similarly mixed review of the film writing "Do come in prepared for some of the usual chest-beating and flag-waving of the subgenre; the Viet Cong are treated mostly as faceless baddies only there to be blown up and shot up en masse in gratuitous slow motion.