Braddock: Missing in Action III.

Review #2535: Braddock: Missing in Action III.

Cast: 

Chuck Norris (Colonel James Thomas Braddock), Aki Aleong (General Quoc), Roland Harrah III (Van Tan Cang), Yehuda Efroni (Reverend Polanski), Floyd Levine (General Duncan), Miki Kim (Lin Tan Cang), Ron Barker ("Mik" Mikalchek), Jack Rader (CIA Agent Littlejohn), and Keith David (Embassy Gate Captain) Directed by Aaron Norris.

Review: 

We've done this song and dance before. I try to have a bit of historical context with what Norris was doing being in a film like this, I try to wonder if I will find a Norris performance that actually evokes something besides doing a few kicks/shooting bullets and not really much else. You might think, isn't that a bit too derisive? No, because I've had plenty of fun with movies involving Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, and in the same year that Braddock: Missing in Action III was released, audiences believed there was a rising action star with Steven Seagal in Above the Law. Where was I? Oh, Braddock. Around this era, at one point in time, Norris was apparently was on top of the video market for action stars. It was the 15th feature film with Norris as the leading star and the first of his two films released that year, with Hero and the Terror coming out seven months later in August that were both distributed by Cannon Pictures; Norris wrote the film with James Bruner. You might wonder what "Amerasians" are that the film is about. Well, it is a term (with its type of double-edged sword along with other terms such as "war babies" and "G.I. babies") that refers to people born in Eastern parts of Asia that had a U.S. military father that happened to be around in the regions of say, Okinawa, South Korea, Vietnam, or the Philippines (the latter country once had over 20 U.S. bases for most of the 20th century). Coincidentally, 1988 was the same year that Congress passed the Amerasian Homecoming Act that allowed Amerasians born between 1962-1976 to apply for immigrant visas for the next four years (children and now their parent, could emigrate). The film was filmed in the Philippines (the irony); during production, four officers (military and police) were killed in a helicopter accident. At the time of its release, Norris believed that this was the best work he had done up until that point (I chuckle at hearing that as someone who hasn't seen Code of Silence [1985] or The Delta Force [1985]). The movie was not a major success with audiences, with Norris accusing Cannon of not doing proper marketing for the movie. Norris was not particularly happy with Cannon, but he kept being around them up until the latter went down the tubes by the time of Hellbound (1994).

You might remember that the second film had him deal with Braddock being thought to be dead by his wife in the second film. Now he is shown to have a wife in 1975 around the fall of Saigon. This happened to be the first feature film directed by Aaron Norris, who had gone from stuntman in the 1970s to associate producer in the next decade, and I'm sure he got to direct the film without any consideration from his older brother (they then worked together on five further theatrical films).* Well, actually he was the one who brought up the whole Amerasian thing to his brother and he was chosen when Joseph Zito* and Jack Smight each fell through. You could make the concession that "oh golly gee, what do you expect from an 80s action movie?" But this movie is just the same lame mediocrity that was present in the last two movies; well, less so with the first film, which at least had time for James Hong and M. Emmet Walsh to show up (the second had Steven Williams*). All you get here is a goofy Australian for all of five minutes and...not much else to offer (okay if you pay attention, you can see a young Keith David). Norris can say lines such as "I don't step on toes, I step on necks" all he wants, but he either can't or won't make scenes involving emotional investment actually matter beyond being a hack's vision of what they think a Clint Eastwood action movie is. Maybe it would make a weird double-header with the other 1988 rescue mission movie Rambo III.

It may interest you to know that Aleong (born in Trinidad and Tobago but moved to Brooklyn when he was 15) was a character actor for over 100 movies before he died in 2025. That is as nice as I can be for a movie that does him no favors besides a middling torture scene (at a certain point, this just seems like someone trying to do horror with the whole "lose balance and they die") and him just going "Braddock!". The one amusing sequence is a part where Braddock is told by a reverend that his wife is alive only to immediately be told by a CIA guy to not trust that guy's info...which just makes Braddock believe the reverend even harder. You get the usual type of dreary moments in the jungle and the inevitable rush to stand on one's feet rather than bend the knee (whether that involves driving the kids and the reverend to tough it out in the jungle or, well, finding a pervert groping a child and deciding to stab and then fire a grenade in said man). I especially love that the climax features everyone just watching as father and son come together in the only way possible: aiming the gun to shoot the perfect shot to kill the helicopter pilot (and also the general). As a whole, Braddock: Missing in Action III is mediocre stuff that does nobody any type of favors even with inklings of an interesting story and the occasional flourish of energy to cap out a middling trilogy.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*Actually, he directed just one film without his brother as the star: Platoon Leader in 1988 that had Michael Dudikoff as the star. With a name like that, maybe I should do a Dudikoff Week just for the hell of it.

*What, no love for X? 

You might remember the former as the guy who didn't think Whoopi Goldberg was good enough for Invasion U.S.A. of all things

Invasion U.S.A. (1985)

Review #2523: Invasion U.S.A.

 

Cast: 

Chuck Norris (CIA Agent Matt Hunter), Richard Lynch (Mikhail Rostov), Melissa Prophet (Dahlia McGuire), Alexander Zale (Nikko Kador), Alex Colon (Tomas Montoya), Eddie Jones (FBI Agent-In-Charge Marvin Cassidy), Jon DeVries (FBI Agent Frank Johnston), James O'Sullivan (FBI Agent Fred Harper), Billy Drago (Mickey Seidman), Jaime Sánchez (Luis Castillo), and Dehl Berti (John Eagle) Directed by Joseph Zito (#2202 - Missing in Action)

Review: 

Admittedly, Chuck Norris and Cannon Films were a match made for the cheesy action fan in all of us. Oh sure, the Missing in Action movies (which started in 1984) didn't exactly rock the world in originality or general tone consistency, but they made some money so screw it, let's go all the way with a whole line of Norris movies with the company (in fairness, there were a few curious ones I haven't got to up to 1985, such as his work with Andrew Davis on Code of Silence). Apparently, Norris had the original idea for the film because he read an article in Reader's Digest that said hundreds of terrorists were around loose in America. Norris wrote the screenplay with James Bruner while his brother Aaron co-wrote the story with Bruner. According to Norris, he had Whoopi Goldberg (who at the time had a noted one-woman show) in mind to play the journalist role but he was overruled by Zito (Norris proceeded to never work with Zito ever again). With a budget of $12 million (which they used to do such scenes as going to the Everglades and blow-up actual neighborhoods scheduled for demolition), the movie was a solid enough hit for Cannon and company. The film at one point in time was among the highest-selling home video put out by MGM. Avenging Force (1986) was originally envisioned as a sequel before Norris turned it down, which opened the door for Michael Dudikoff to play a different "Matt Hunter". 

Well, if you can roll off the line around the same time as Rambo: First Blood Part II for Missing in Action, screw it, why not roll off the line from a different-but-totally not similar movie with Red Dawn (1984). But hey, I don't really care that much about movies that may or may not crib from adjacent movies as long as one is having fun with the material. Unfortunately, Zito hasn't really improved much, if any, from his attempts to garner drama with the aforementioned Missing film that resulted in hokey cheese, which is astounding when the film at least has the semblance of a worthy adversary this time around. The movie is the type of red meat for both people who love to see movies in the most good-vs-evil way possible and those who like to poke a few holes at the absurdity of action movies that take themselves so seriously. This is the kind of movie that shows neighborhoods in Christmastime getting blasted with rocket-launchers and people getting roughed up when trying to do cocaine only to soon get thrown into a window*. I wonder if people from Florida would regard it as "peak Florida experience" (okay the movie was also filmed in the greater Atlanta area, but still). Norris seems to only make an emotive gesture when there's a full moon, but even calling him a student of the "Clint Eastwood School of Acting" sounds a bit absurd when you consider that there aren't even that many kicks for him to do this time, mainly because he doesn't even bother with trying to have chemistry with anyone else in the film, he just maneuvers around with stunts and guns as if he really was the predecessor to Neil Breen. Lynch is charmingly hammy in a way that benefits the film more than if it was just lazy cardboard or understated, at least for a movie that has the guts to have a dream sequence of the lead characters in the first hour. You just need a bit of chaos, really. The rest of the folks (such as Prophet, who at least isn't written to try to have a romance with our wooden lead but mostly goes around with a camera saying wisecracks) are basically ho-hum for a movie that doesn't exactly present itself well in the whole "the streets are rioting because of the terrorists thing". If you know what you are getting into for 107 minutes in terms of sheer audacity, you might have a curious time with this movie. I can't give it a positive rating (that's the whole point of a 6/10), but I can't exactly hate its entertainment value in terms of what it thinks you want from action and, well, a battle of good vs. evil. What could go wrong?

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*You gotta love the special thanks note in the credits, which lists the ones you might expect, like the Georgia Army National Guard or Nissan Motors (I guess getting blown up is good business for a car company), and, um, Phyillis Diller and Merv Griffin Enterprises.

Missing in Action 2: The Beginning.

Review #2389: Missing in Action 2: The Beginning.

Cast: 

Chuck Norris (Colonel James Thomas Braddock), Soon-Tek Oh (Colonel Yin), Steven Williams (Captain David Nester), Bennett Ohta (Captain Ho), Cosie Costa (Lieutenant Anthony Mazilli), Joe Michael Terry (Corporal Lawrence Opelka), Christopher Cary (Emerson), John Wesley (Master Sergeant Ernest Franklin), David Chung (Dou Chou), and Professor Toru Tanaka (Lao) Directed by Lance Hool.

Review: 

You might remember that with Missing in Action (1984), there were two movies done back-to-back about a man trapped in a North Vietnamese POW camp that eventually broke out from there and years later traveled with an investigation team wondering if there was any US soldier still out there. Well, the movie about the man going back to the jungle somehow seemed more commercially appealing than the movie about being in a POW camp, so with the planned first movie, they simply just named it "The Beginning". The script for this film (made for roughly over $2 million) was written by Arthur Silver, Larry Levinson, and Steve Bing. This actually was the directorial debut of Lance Hool, who had served as producer on films such as Wolf Lake (1979) and The Evil That Men Do (1984) while spending many years in the Mexican film industry. Hool has sticked mostly to producing movies, but he has directed three other movies as well, with the latest one being 2 Hearts [2020]. Chuck Norris once stated that his films "do deal with certain positive things", believing that people went to see them because of the feel-good endings and stating that one great thrill of his life was hearing people applaud at the end of Missing in Action (1984); he participated in those movies as a tribute to his brother Wieland and also remarked that Vietnam "was a tragic mistake. If you don't want to win the battle, don't get involved.'' Four years later, with a script written by James Bruner and Chuck Norris with direction by his brother Aaron, Braddock: Missing in Action III came out from Cannon Films, complete with yet another different supporting cast around its star.

You would think a movie where Norris has to at least sell the perils of being trapped in a POW camp (with a 95-minute runtime) would be an interesting prospect to set up a tense experience before the inevitable climax. But all you get here is just a movie too wrapped in flat routines. It's not enough for a POW camp to have a guy leading the way in sadistic torture, complete with an actual (dead) rat used in one scene with a bag, no he also grows opium for a side hustle in drugs too. You might say that a good deal of action movies has routines they have to live by, but some of them at least have the energy to back up any audacious moments. Here, you have a movie that is probably only truly interesting with a scene involving, well, a rat. John Wayne impersonation or not, Norris is just too stoic here, somehow having as little personality as possible. Oh may have some of the smug and sadistic qualities needed for an adversary this film desperately requires, but there is still something so hollow in the writing beyond what you might see from the old-fashioned exploitation films of yesteryear. Hell, probably the one thing that sticks out from him is that he and the villain have a fistfight at the end because they share the same rationale of "nah, I can't just shoot him, I must beat him head-on" before the ending decides that, wait, you gotta blow him up too just for good measure. Williams probably is the highlight among most (if not all) of the cast*, mainly because his struggle with his own surroundings as one with the illusion of freedom, but it can only go so far with such few scenes (one being a fistfight, naturally) that it almost seems pointless. The time spent in captivity might be interesting to those who probably thought The Deer Hunter (1978) was too subtle. The movie may believe it has the energy and commitment to have its first half of misery follow with the action-packed climax mesh well together, but it really just comes off as a puddle. I called the other Missing in Action "an action cheese fest", but at least it had gall to set forth on that goal. In general, the movie is probably best serviceable for those who cared about the first film, whether that is the dull sense of the word or not, but this is a movie made on the cheap that really needed fleshing out, because the end result is just too cardboard in its one-sided goals to rise above D-grade entertainment. 

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

*Tanaka (Charles J. Kalani Jr) was actually a boxer-turned-wrestler-turned-actor and he barely has anything to do besides be the heavy. Incidentally, four of the main ten cast members of the film don't even have Wikipedia pages.

Missing in Action.

Review #2202: Missing in Action.

Cast: 

Chuck Norris (Colonel James Braddock), M. Emmet Walsh (Jack "Tuck" Tucker), David Tress (Senator Maxwell Porter), Lenore Kasdorf (Ann Fitzgerald), Ernie Ortega (General Vinh), James Hong (General Tran), E. Erich Anderson (Masucci), and Pierrino Mascarino (Jacques) Directed by Joseph Zito.

Review: 

Much in the same way that a fruit can be cut several different ways, one can really do movies with similar subject matter with pretty different execution. If you remember, James Cameron was behind the original treatment for what became Rambo: First Blood Part II in May of 1985 (he had written it when waiting to start filming The Terminator), which, well, was an action film where Rambo went from being a "documenter of possible prisoners held by jailers" to "fuck 'em". Incidentally, earlier in the decade, Robert R. Garwood (a Private), among one of the last American POW from the Vietnam War (as captured in 1965 but one who did not return to America until 1979) faced a court martial after being accused of being a collaborator with the enemy that saw him stripped of his rank (he had claimed that American POWs were left behind in Vietnam). Even decades after the war, the Department of Defense lists "current numbers of Americans who are unaccounted for in Southeast Asia" at over a thousand. Anyway, Cameron's script led to inspiration (as one says) for the Cannon Group to see if they could do their own film involving war veterans and beat the Rambo film to the punch, which they did. In fact, they filmed two Missing in Action films, with the original plan to have the one directed by Lance Hool (which involved the POW days of the lead character) be released first before the rescue one...but the commercial prospects were found to be better with this film and so the other film was titled Missing in Action 2: The Beginning and released in March of 1985 (not long after the first one!) and somehow two months before the Rambo sequel. All of this is how the first film gets a screenplay and writing credit that has Arthur Silver, Larry Levinson and Steve Bing listed for characters, James Bruner for screenplay, and John Crowther and Lance Hool for story. 1988 saw the release of Braddock: Missing in Action III, which was considerably less successful.

Norris has stated that the film was one he made as a memorial for his younger brother Wieland, who died in combat in Vietnam. It was also the first film he did with the Cannon Group. This was the fifth film of Joseph Zito, who had directed the fourth (and intended final) film of the Friday the 13th series earlier in 1984, although his previous effort The Prowler (1981) has received far more interesting notice in later years. He did one further film with Norris in Invasion U.S.A. (1985). Imagine making a 100-minute movie with as little tension as possible and you have something that probably would fit right at home with keeping one eye open when trying to, say, paint. Norris seems to have settled into a Clint Eastwood impersonation that happens to do action with feet and blasting away, but it isn't particularly infused with even the slightest bit of charisma besides the minimum. The film somehow feels small in scale because by blasting away with faceless enemies (Hong doesn't even make it to the 45th minute but he does what the film needs before being disposed of) and having just Walsh with the semblance of energy, one just finds an average hollow film. Walsh is sly enough that being a sidekick character in his mid-forties is a hoot fitting enough to engage with. Well, I can say this much...it makes one realize that um, maybe I misjudged Good Guys Wear Black (1978) when it came to calling Norris one who sounded like an "instructional guidebook for using a power tool". This film at least drops the pretense of playing it for the thriller angle and goes straight for an action cheese fest. Sure, it lacks a true villain besides the nameless folks getting shot at, but one can at least get some sort of curiosity of seeing Norris playing opposite a character actor pro in Walsh (rest in peace) as opposed to trying to wedge in a romantic angle between Norris and Kasdorf (at least this one doesn't go like that aforementioned Good Guys film and explode a plane). I especially like how the ending is a dramatic build to...storming a building to show the truth. As a whole, it may have beaten First Blood Part II when it comes to POW rescue films, but it doesn't hold too much of a candle in overall execution, instead being an average film that lacks the final push to be anything other than the action film picked after the pile has nearly been finished.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Good Guys Wear Black.

Review #2045: Good Guys Wear Black.

Cast: 

Chuck Norris (Major John T. Booker, The Black Tigers), Anne Archer (Margaret), James Franciscus (Senator Conrad Morgan), Lloyd Haynes (Murray Saunders), Dana Andrews (Edgar Harolds), Jim Backus (Albert, The Apartment Doorman), Lawrence P. Casey (Mike Potter, The Black Tigers), Anthony Mannino (Gordie Jones, The Black Tigers), and Soon-Tek Oh (Major Mhin Van Thieu, The Black Tigers) Directed by Ted Post (#518 - Hang 'Em High, #662 - Beneath the Planet of the Apes, and #1135 - Magnum Force)

Review: 

Hell, there really is no way to start watching a Chuck Norris film. Born in Oklahoma, Norris served in the United States Air Force Security Forces that saw him serve in South Korea and California. It was here that he trained in Tang Soo Do that lead to a black belt in that form along with him developing his own form. He participated in martial arts competitions and eventually proved quite successful. The first feature film that Norris had a credited role was The Way of the Dragon (1972), a martial arts action comedy that was made by Bruce Lee (star and director) that featured a fight sequence between him and Lee. Steve McQueen, who was a student of Norris, encouraged him to take acting classes around this time. His next prominent role was Yellow Faced Tiger (1974), a Lo Wei-directed film. Norris got his chance to star in his very own film with Breaker! Breaker! (1977), as directed by Don Hulette that was shot in just under two weeks. It ended up being a fair hit on its low budget. It was his next film, however, that he considered his breakthrough, with Norris stating that he had the faith to be as big in the movies as he was in the karate industry. This isn't to forget the directing contribution of Ted Post, of course. Post had served in the U.S. Army in their Special Service division in Italy before his return to the States saw him become a dependable name to hire for television, as signified by the many credits for shows such as Peyton Place, Gunsmoke, and several others. His most noted films either involved Clint Eastwood (two films) or certain cult classics such as The Baby (1973) and Go Tell the Spartans (1978). The screenplay was done by Bruce Cohn and Mark Medoff while the story was done by Joseph Fraley.

I will say this much, it technically is entertaining as a film despite being an obvious case of overblown hooey. Maybe it is just because it is my first experience watching Norris on a big screen (in the early parts of the career), but I think I can sum up his acting in a couple of words: he talks like an instructional guidebook for using a power tool, which is almost sort of amusing when he is meant to be presented as the serious man of a conspiracy thriller that we know is going to eventually have to do some kicking. Even at 96 minutes, the runtime is perhaps a bit too drawn out to actually merit anything other than bemusement for its paranoia despite not having enough there to really make a grand film. Simply put, it does not have enough action to back up its ambition nor is it effective enough in its convictions to get out of the quicksand despite having a cynical bent. Maybe it is a bit silly to compare, but think back to something released later on such as Above the Law (1988), which featured an American karate name starring in a film playing an ex-CIA guy thrust back into the world of danger that has a villain all about using people for their own means without caring about the consequences (of course, the hero in one of them is a cop and the other is a college professor, so there's that). Sometimes you just need a bit more. I will say though, that the film at least has a few distinct names, whether that involves Haynes (most known for Room 222), Andrews (hey, he was a noir lead for the 1940s and a dependable character presence), or Archer (in an early moment), or with Franciscus (a regular television presence and a few films). Of these folks, it might be Andrews who steals the show when it comes to chewing the scenery in one-note effectiveness (read: exposition), although Haynes is dependable. Archer and Norris don't fare particularly great together, but it is more than can be said for Franciscus, who only gets to show the scuzzy side in the opening and closing. It isn't particularly thrilling to be interesting, and it isn't particularly active to be dependable entertainment beyond the scale of mediocrity. Norris and company obviously know how to stage a good stunt, but it takes a bit more to really make a useful winner, but one never knows with a different film in the future.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Movie Night: The Expendables 2.

Review #675: The Expendables 2.

Cast
Sylvester Stallone (Barney Ross), Yu Nan (Maggie Chan), Jason Statham (Lee Christmas), Dolph Lundgren (Gunner Jensen), Jean-Claude Van Damme (Jean Vilain), Bruce Willis (Church), Arnold Schwarzenegger (Trench Mauser), Terry Crews (Hale Caesar), Randy Couture (Toll Road), Chuck Norris (Booker), Jet Li (Yin Yang), Liam Hemsworth (Billy the Kid), and Scott Adkins (Hector) Directed by Simon West (#458 - Lara Croft: Tomb Raider)

Review
It figures that I'd get to this eventually. And 628 reviews later, a review of the sequel to a movie that to begin with was a nice little capsule for action stars old and new...now with two sequels in tow. Granted, it is fun to see Schwarzenegger in an action role (as opposed to a cameo) again, and I admit, this is more of a guilt pick for me. And yes, Van Damme plays a villain called Jean Vilain. He's actually pretty decent in this film, and he's about as right for this film as tanks getting blown up. Really when you think about it, this is a sandwich of action with a slice of referential humor in there for effect, with the plot representing the condiment on the sandwich (or bagel, if you prefer), which I guess makes sense. Or it makes me hungry. The cast is enjoyable (Terry Crews especially, but hey, even Lundgren is cool). Nan provides a breath of fresh air to the movie, which is a good thing. The movie is what you want: awesome fun that doesn't drag too much. Honestly, it's better than the first film, even if still gets the same rating, so make up your mind on that one. Tomorrow (December 20th) is the 4th Anniversary of the show, so I've got something planned for it. Stay tuned.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.