Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Catherina If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Leofwine_draca Predictable but fun war thriller which benefits from a pleasingly dark, gritty feel and realism from the location shooting in Vietnam. Back in the mid '80s, if you had a country as an enemy, you wouldn't need to send an army in - instead just pick from the ranks of Norris, Stallone, or Schwarzenegger and you could be sure they would single-handedly wipe out the bad guys for you. Norris plays his role as typically morose and straight-faced, rarely cracking a smile and instead dedicated to his mission, which is rescuing P.O.Ws. Scenes of Norris climbing walls unaided and battling various assassins and opponents help to show off the great man's skills and he proves himself here as a capable action hero, although I would have liked to have seen more of his martial arts abilities which are pushed back in favour of firearms.After the initial set-up, MISSING IN ACTION benefits from plenty of local colour and puts across an image of a really sleazy Saigon, filled with brothels, pimps, murderers, and other street slime. Into this setting comes Norris, assailed by men in cupboards and rocket-launching scum who care not for human life. Later, Norris ventures into the deep dark jungle and the shooting begins, packing scenes with explosions, bad guys getting shot and blown up and plenty of macho heroism - including an uplifting shot of Norris rising from a lake in slow-motion and blasting down the laughing bad guys. The stuntmen (including one J. Claude Van Damme in their ranks, no less) perform their duties well and the action is glossy, explosive and entertaining.Support comes from the capable M. Emmet Walsh who succeeds in the rather clichéd role of 'Tuck', Norris's old army buddy, a boozing, middle-aged, overweight smuggler who goes along for the ride. Lenore Kasdorf is suitably charming as the brief love interest whilst James Hong and Ernie Ortega excel as the slimy Vietnamese villains. The rest of the cast are made up of genuine Vietnamese folk which again adds to the realism of the production. Although this movie caused controversy at the time due to what many people felt were racist representations of the Vietnamese, this doesn't stop it from being a good old-fashioned patriotic blood-and-thunder production, not one of the star's best but a solid entry nonetheless. Two sequels followed which I look forward to watching.

Adam Sentiff Colonel James Braddock is an American officer who was a POW for 7 years in Vietnam. Braddock has returned to Vietnam with a purpose and a mission, to find and rescue interned American POW's which the Vietnamese government denies exists. Braddock will find the truth even if it costs him his freedom and his life.A simply action film that has charm to it. Not the best acted or the best story I've ever seen, simplistic and perhaps clichéd in many aspects but its an enjoyable film. If your nostalgic about 80's films and action films with an simplistic story but a film that holds charm. The acting is sub par, the story clichéd, the direction semi mediocre, but where this film gets its charm is in Chuck Norris and the action itself. A good portion of this film attempts to imitate, Rambo: First Blood Part II, and even its producers have admitted this, but as i said their is a certain charm to this film that will grow on the viewer with repeated viewings. Though first time viewers may find this film cheesy, older generation film goers may watch with a glint of nostalgia and fin themselves enjoying the film.

Comeuppance Reviews Col. James Braddock (Chuck) spent several years in a North Vietnamese POW camp. After escaping, he's now home, but he's a troubled man. He's invited by the American government to go back to Vietnam to investigate/talk about the phenomenon of soldiers still Missing In Action. Tensions flare, thanks to the evil General Trau (Hong). Braddock, being the badass that he is, decides to go off on his own into the jungle (actually with Tuck (Walsh), an old army buddy), and rescue any remaining POW's himself. While in the midst of their mission, they face an endless stream of baddies trying to stop them. It'll take all the firepower and skill Braddock has to defeat the enemy and save the missing men. Can he do it? This is classic Cannon all the way, and they really hit paydirt with this one. Thanks to the high-quality cinematography, the rousing, triumphant score, and the longer running time, Missing In Action has that big-screen feel. While the pace, at least for the first half of the movie, may seem a bit on the slow side to modern viewers, that's just the way things worked back then. It's a pre-ADD generation action movie. And we're all the better for it. It's ultimately a rewarding experience, and Cannon (as well as moviegoers) obviously thought so too, as this spawned two sequels to date (maybe we haven't seen the last of Braddock...?). Surely this film was at the forefront of the exploding hut/guy falling out of a guard tower/mindless shooting jungle movie back in the golden age of the 80's. Along with the Rambo series, not to mention countless Direct-To-Video items, these movies capitalized on the craze for patriotic movies with plenty of violence that were so in vogue in the Reagan 80's. To hammer the point home even more, stock footage of Reagan is actually IN Missing In Action 2. If you even THINK about communism, Braddock, Rambo, or any number of other heroes will mow you down with a machine gun that's taller than they are. So there. Take that you stupid commies.As for the cast and crew, Chuck Norris here started to take tentative steps toward his Texas-based clothing style that would manifest itself most fully during the Walker: Texas Ranger years. His hair and beard are at their reddest and most impressive here, and when he wears his sunglasses, you really can't even see his face. M. Emmet Walsh is always a welcome sight to see, and he plays a similar character in Red Scorpion (1988), which was also directed by Joseph Zito. As good as Walsh is, we also felt the role could have been played by Nick Nolte. Lenore Kasdorf of L.A. Bounty (1989) fame is onboard, as well as James Hong, who's been in pretty much everything. For our purposes here, he was in the same year's Cannon vehicle, the great Ninja III (1984), and much later was in Talons Of the Eagle (1992). Willie Williams, whose entire movie career seems to have been in Vietnam (or Nam-like) Jungle movies such as Final Mission (1984), Savage Justice (1988), Saigon Commandos (1988) and, not coincidentally, P.O.W. The Escape (1986), continues his tradition with the movie at hand today.Also it has been said that none other than Van Damme appears in an uncredited role as "Car Driver", but we didn't see him, so we can't necessarily confirm that that's actually true. But he's also credited with stunts, along with Aaron Norris, who would go on to direct the second sequel, Braddock, as well as Dean Ferrandini, who would go on to direct Overkill (1996). The next year after this, Zito would direct the ultimate Chuck movie, Invasion U.S.A. (1985) This is a nice trial run for that masterpiece.If there was going to be a movie version of the 80's Nintendo game Jackal, this could be it. It's a shoot-em-up where the hero must save the hostages. But here the hero is outspoken on the M.I.A. issue and is Chuck Norris. I guess those are the only two differences.Missing In Action is undoubtedly a classic and is completely worth seeing. In our eyes, however, the series would improve even more in the subsequent two outings, so watch out for those as well.

ebiros2 This is the first of Missing in Action series movies made by Golan-Globus production. Golan- Globus made pretty good B movies in the '80s, that were aimed to entertain its audiences. One thing that jumps out when I see this movie is that it's beautifully shot. There's not a bad scene in this movie, and the credit goes to director Joseph Zeto.There's not much going for the story if you look at it now, but back then MIA was a hot media topic, and this movie merged the MIA subject with Rambo type story.I'm not sure what's missing from this "Missing In Action" movie, but it's rather one dimensional. Maybe it's because it has shooting, and fighting and not much else going on in the story. It's also an early Chuck Norris classic, and the scene that he appears from the water shooting his rifle is one of the well known scene in cinema history.If you love war movies, or looking for Chuck Norris action, you came to the right place. If you're looking for this type of entertainment, it's a good movie for you.