Missing in Action (1984)

Missing in Action (1984)

 

Starring: Chuck Norris, M. Emmet Walsh, Lenore Kasdorf, James Hong, David Tress, Ernie Ortega
Director: Joseph Zito
Action Director: Aaron Norris

 

I find it interesting that this film was dismissed by critics as a “preemptive rip-off” of Rambo. I mean, can you “rip off” something that hasn’t even come out yet? I suppose you can cash in on the hype, but does that make it a rip-off or a clone? I’ll leave that question for the philosophers. In any case, Missing in Action was made in between the releases of First Blood (1982) and Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985). Moreover, Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan of Canon Pictures got both this and the prequel into theaters before the second Rambo film did. And apparently, Golan and Globus had access to the original screenplay for First Blood Part II as written by James Cameron—Cameron has distanced himself from the project, despite getting screenplay credit in the final film.

In any case, Missing Action is quite possibly the first “one-man army” film that was popular during the 1980s and was homage’d 30 years later in the Expendables films. It is not the first action film about going back to Vietnam; the ensemble action-drama Uncommon Valor—considered one of the better ‘Nam films from the 1980s—had come out the year before and was reasonably successful. Missing in Action was made with an especially lean budget of three million dollars and was a resounding success, bringing in about 52 million dollars at the box office. It also marked Chuck Norris’s transition from your basic “karate actor” to “generic action star.”

We open with a bunch of soldiers, led by Colonel James Braddock (Norris), fleeing through the jungles of Vietnam while pursued by “Charlie”. Once they reach the extraction point, they are set upon on all sides, from mortar shells to machine gun fire. After watching his friends get shot and bayonetted to death by the Viet Cong, Braddock goes nuts and lunges at “Charlie” with a pair of live grenades. Cue Braddock waking up from a nightmare caused by his battle fatigue post-traumatic stress disorder.

What we learn about Braddock is that he had been captured and held as a Prisoner of War in Vietnam for about a decade before escaping on his own. At this time there are talks between American politicians, personified by Senator Maxwell Porter (David Tress), and Vietnamese leaders about the existence of MIAs still being held in Vietnam. Porter has reached out to Braddock numerous times to accompany him to Vietnam to testify that yes, there are likely more POWs and MIAs that need to be recognized and released. Braddock eventually agrees and goes to Vietnam with Senator Porter and Ann Fitzgerald (Lenore Kasdorf, of Amityville Dollhouse and L.A. Bounty), who works for the State Department.

It doesn’t take Braddock more than a few minutes after setting foot in Vietnam to start kicking up dust. First, he disrespects General Tran (James Hong, of The Perfect Weapon and Bloodsport 2) to his face by refusing to shake his hand. He then calls Tran an asshole at a public hearing about the existence of MIAs in Vietnam. That last part begs some explanation. You see, apparently while he was imprisoned in ‘Nam, he was forced to sign a confession of war crimes by his captors. And when Tran brings up that document at the meeting, that was the last straw for Braddock. A man who has been through as much as he has can only watch his leaders kiss another country’s butt in exchange for lies for so long before he snaps. Also, it should be noted that the second to last straw was seeing one of his captors, Vinh (Filipino actor Ernie Ortega, of Return of the Kickfighter and Deadly Target), among the higher-ups of these meetings.

This is where Braddock starts his one-man campaign for post-war justice. First, he sneaks out of his hotel and makes his way across Saigon to General Tran’s mansion. Once there, he forces General Tran at knifepoint to reveal to him the location of a prison camp. He also kills the General, but that’s only because the guy tried to shoot him afterward. Armed with this information, he leaves Vietnam—almost getting caught by the authorities at one point—and goes into Thailand. There, he meets up with Jack Tucker (M. Emmet Walsh, of Blade Runner and Blood Simple), an American smuggler who specializes in bringing contraband (i.e. beer, cigarettes) into Vietnam. He convinces Tucker and several of his contacts to supply him with guns, explosives, boats and even helicopter support in order to go back into ‘Nam and find the POW camp. What Braddock doesn’t know is that General Vinh and his men are keeping a close eye on his activities. But this is Chuck Norris we’re talking about: This time, we win!

An aside: I’m pretty sure that one cannot find a Hollywood film set in Thailand that does not bring up the country’s reputation as a haven for sex tourism. Missing in Action is no exception. In one scene, Braddock enters a bar to get information as to the whereabouts of Mr. Tucker. As soon he gets his info and leaves, we see some random naked chick lifted onto the counter by a bar patron. Uh, okay. Braddock then goes to a brothel-cum-nightclub (har!) to find Tucker, in which the entertainment is a (clothed) woman singing while all the other women on stage are dancing completely naked. Finally, when Braddock is ready to carry out his mission, he finds Tucker in bed with two Asian girls (whom I assume are Filipino girls pretending to be Thai).

Enjoying Missing in Action requires some adjustment of one’s expectations. First of all, people expecting Norris and his infamous Roundhouse Kick to be a big part of the action will no doubt come away disappointed. There are some brief martial arts against a Vietnamese agent in Braddock’s hotel room near the hour mark, but that’s about it. And the one-man army shenanigans don’t really begin until the final half hour. The movie was made on a budget, and although you could do this sort of thing in the Philippines for far cheaper than you could in the States, Canon was still working with a limited budget at this point. That said, the film is divided neatly into three coherent acts: 1) Braddock’s return to Vietnam and discovery of another prisoner camp; 2) Braddock’s trip to Thailand to prepare himself for his own personal mission; and 3) the mission itself.

The mission itself, staged mainly by Aaron Norris and his team (including a pre-fame Jean-Claude Van Damme), is okay. I’m sure that the concept of “Bullet Ballet” and “Gun-Fu” and stuff like that was completely foreign in Hollywood in 1984. It technically hadn’t been invented in Hong Kong at that point, although they were going in that direction with films like The Long Arm of the Law. What I mean with all of this is that the action is very much of the style of “people shoot machine guns in each other’s direction for several minutes without hitting anything until the script says that someone has to fall over and die.” Oh sure, you get to Chuck Norris mowing down people with M60 machine guns and M-16s, but there is no “art” to the staging. Nor is the action particularly bloody, despite the R rating. Then again, this was more than a decade before Saving Private Ryan sent the message to studios that all war battle scenes had to show people getting completely eviscerated by bullet wounds, because that’s realistic. There are some neat pyrotechnics when Braddock destroys the prison camp with C4 plastic explosives, though. Moreover, dividing the climax into three sections—blowing up the camp, attacking the prisoner convoy, and the final part on the river with the boats—guarantees that the action doesn’t get too repetitive.

In the end, Missing in Action is pretty decent popcorn entertainment. Chuck Norris turns in one of his better performances as a man haunted by the memories of the Hell of War (and Imprisonment) who is just about to explode at any moment. The action isn’t bad, although subsequent movies of this ilk would do it better. But as an early example of the “art form,” it is worth a look.