Excellent, smart action film.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

If you like mindless violence, then this is your movie.Think Jack the Ripper in Saigon. Murders of prostitutes and the trail leads to a higher up.Gregory Hines and Willem Dafoe are plainclothes MPs trying to solve one murder when they find more. They end up working with a nun (Amanda Pays)who knows the dead girls who have been murdered over the past year. There is even a nunsploitation angle as the sexual tension between Dafoe and Pays is always present.Their efforts are complicated by the fact that the local Vietnamese cop (Kay Tong Lim) doesn't like them.There are some good supporting players like Fred Ward, David Alan Grier, and Scott Glenn.The killer is not reveled until the end, but I bet you guessed who it was.

Off Limits (AKA: Saigon) is the missing Vietnam film, a film I feel not many have actually seen since I never see it mentioned on the message boards out there in net land. While I have certainly never heard it spoken about when talk of Vietnam films crops up. The film is in essence a who done it police drama, two cops on the streets of Saigon during the war are searching for a high ranking officer who is, erm, offing prostitutes.It is the backdrop of the war that gives the film added substance and lifts it way above average, because we see not only the problems a murder investigation brings, but also the horror of war getting in the way as well. Some damn fine and tidy performances flesh out the characters, with both Gregory Hines & Willem Dafoe as our two stoic and battle weary coppers engaging us from the off, whilst the supporting cast of Fred Ward, Keith David (look out for his dance man!) & Scott Glenn are interestingly watchable; the latter of which who leaves the lasting impression with what has to be the best 5 minutes work he ever did during a brilliant interrogation sequence during a mid-air flight.It's gritty and interesting and deserves to be better known and sought out. It doesn't pull up any trees as regards formula, and it certainly isn't one you will want to go back to time and time again for thrills and spills, but it hits the spot and as the mystery and stifling heat of Vietnam pervades the mood, you will remember watching it long after the credits have rolled. 7/10

During the sixties,Anataole Litvak made "the night of the generals".A nazi officer was on a prostitutes murder's trail in Varsaw,Poland:and it seemed that the culprit was a general (check the title).That script was absurd -in Varsaw,during WW2,there was worse,to say the least!-and dubious taste.So back in Saigon,during the Vietnam war.Two cops are on a prostitutes ' murder's trail...and it seems that this killer is a general....Well you get the picture.Well,it's not that bad.It's rather entertaining,thanks to Dafoe's good performance.A lot of things do not rise above routine:the two cops who ,of course, are very different,the de rigueur swearwords ,and strip tease galore.What's more interesting is the conflict between the American cops and their local colleagues ,although it's much too superficial,as the Dafoe/nun 's relationship is.Unlike Litvak's Polish extravaganza in which we soon know the murderer's name,"off limits' is a whodunit,saving his identity for the last minutes.Best moment:although over the top,the scene on the plane where two simultaneous questionings take place gives goosepimples.

Gregory Hines and Willem Dafoe make an excellent team in this unusual murder mystery set in Vietnam.Actual filming overseas add to the realism.Anyone ever serving in the Pacific can attest to that.The soundtrack was great, using music not usually heard in most of the Vietnam movies.Supporting actors performances were also very good ( Fred ward, Amanda Pays ).I have collected all the Vietnam movies and rate this one of the best.