MISSING IN ACTION - Chuck amuck

The eighties, I've always contended, are a golden era of action films. Rocky had burst onto the scene in the late seventies, but it was in the eighties it became progressively more cartoon-y and fun. Of course 1984 saw The Terminator which elevated Arnold Strong's career from B-Movie Hercules to a catchphrase saying juggernaught. Amid all this action movie. . . um, action, there were a couple of studios that could be counted on to turn out flick after flick of Grade-A cheese. Orion Films always could serve up huge portions of Drive-in movie fair, Carolco pictures shaped the eighties with Rambo (and of course the formetioned Terminator) - but to my mind, the kings of eighties low budget extranvaganza is the Cannon Group, purveyors of such fine cinematic treasures as Breakin' 2; Electric Boogaloo, American Ninja, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and of course Missing in Action.

Somehow Menahem Golan and his cousin Yoram Globus managed to tap into what we wanted the eighties and deliver it quickly and cheaply and packed with a whole lot of fun.

We open right out of the gate with some action, in a unnamed, presumably Vietnam-ish jungle (but really a rainforest somewhere in North America, a billion miles away from Saigon), and a squad (platoon? Group? Herd? I don&#146t know my military jargon) of besieged solders are under attack from some non-descript, presumably Vietnamese-ish solders. At the pickup point things go horribly wrong and GI Joes are dropping left and right. Faster than you can say "Cobra Commander" Chuck's buddies are impaled on Charlie's bayonet and Chuck leaps onto the dieing solders with a fist full of grenades! BOOM!

Well, that was a short movie. Oh, wait - dream sequence.

Turns out that Chuck recently escaped from Charlie, and now back in the states has been actively pushing for investigations into the plight of the MIAs still left behind. And so the state department ships him and some diplomats off to 'Nam to shake some bushes and get some results. Of course, being a Chuck Norris movie, the diplomacy phase of the mission is exceptionally brief as Chuck turns out to be a complete embarrassment to the government - so they try and ship him home.

That's fine with Chuck, since he snuck into the home of General Trau (played by James Hong, better known as freakin' Lo Pan in Big Trouble in Little China - sadly we get no kung fu between the two, which would have been sweet) and learned the location of some MIA currently in custody.

And so off Chuck goes into the jungle to free some captives. He taps an old friend (Played by M. Emmet Walsh, fresh off such classics as Blade runner, Airport '77 and The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh), gets his mitts on a bullet proof raft (handy, that) and lots of stuff blows up real good before the missing vets are saved. Booh-yeah! That'll learn Charlie to mess with Regan's America!

And - I swear this is true - Jean-Claude Van Damme appears as one of the stunt men, which suddenly makes his rumored appearance in Breakin all that more credible to me.

Director Joseph Zito, who would go on to give us Invasion USA the next year, knows how to keep things moving. While not the "Gratuitous violence every 10 minutes" that Invasion was, Missing in Action cruises right along with Chuck either sneaking into places, breaking up barroom brawls (ok, Whorehouse brawls - but who's nit-picking) or rising up out of the water all slo-mo style, ventilating some of Charlie's finest with a browning machine gun. The movie slows down a little while Chuck is actually getting to the camp, but it doesn&#146t bore - and then of course kicks into overdrive for the climax.

Of course logic is not this movies strong point. If the Prisoners of war were still being held for some kind of bargaining chip, why would the Vietnamese government deny that they had them? Or do they just like torturing people doing peace time? And if the American government isn&#146t looking for the missing solders, and nobody is likely to stumble over them in the woods, then why have all the guards and military hardware to watch over them*? And then when Chuck finally storms the camp, there are only three men?!? All this hardware and effort for three guys locked up? I'm gonna stop now - my brain is starting to hurt.

* As it turns out at least that one was answered in the prequel/sequel: Braddok's camp also doubled as an opium farm, manufacturing all kinds of high grade drugs for the French, of all people. The POWs were just cheap labor, and the guards were protecting the opium.

Ok, lets not mince words - while Missing in Action is one of Norris' better flicks (still unable to beat Invasion USA for all time best), it's really dumb. It's cheesy, it's jingoistic, it's terribly acted and has ridiculous stereotypes instead of characters. But you can't help but get suckered in by the fun factor. Golan-Globus may not have made good films, but they did make simple, bullet-riddled, crowd- pleasing entertaining films.

BREASTS ON DISPLAY: 5
EXPLOSIONS: 76
ROUNDS FIRED: 6,809
PUNCHES THROWN: 43 (and one roundhouse kick)
HANDRAIL DEATHS: 0
CAR CHASES: 1
FRUIT CARTS DESTROYED: 1
NINJA? No
F BOMBS DROPPED: 0
BEST LINE: Do you mind? I'm a bit shy.

THE DVD -
Hold the phone - a Cannon film in anamorphic wide screen? Be still my heart! Ok, the print isn&#146t that great, but it looks on par for a cheapy from the eighties. Oh, and there's a pan-and-scan version on the other side of the disc, but I refuse to sully my player by putting that in - and you should too! For SHAME!

The print they used looks pretty good - only the occasional scratch or blemish here and there. Considering the vintage of the movie, we get a good looking disc.

THE EXTRAS -
We get . . . wait for it. . . . a trailer. Not even a promotional booklet insert!

THE BOTTOM LINE -
Missing in Action is goofy fun from the golden era of action movies. They don&#146t make them like this anymore.