Review: Missing in Action II: The Beginning

Chuck Norris is Col. Braddock, one of several American POWs in the camp of nasty Vietnamese Col. Yin (Soon-Tek Oh). Col. Yin wants the Americans and particularly Braddock to sign a confession to war crimes in exchange for his freedom. Col. Braddock, being a tough bastard and rigid OK-USA patriot says ‘fuck that’. The film follows their battle of wills, with Braddock’s fellow POWs experiencing all kind of torture from the brutal Col. Yin. Steven Williams is Nester, who takes to brown-nosing towards the ‘enemy’ like a duck to water, much to Braddock’s disgust. Prof. Toru Tanaka plays a guard, while Christopher Cary pops up as a brief source of hope to the prisoners.

You know you’re not in for a good time when the sequel was actually made first but released second because Golan/Globus realised it was the weaker film. Indeed this 1985 Lance Hool (director of the not-awful Patrick Swayze action flick “Steel Dawn”) POW flick scripted by the trio of Arthur Silver (who wrote for “Married…With Children” and created its somewhat surreal rip-off “Unhappily Ever After”), Larry Levinson (a seriously prolific producer of TV movies) and Steve Bing (of billionaire and Liz Hurley fame) is the far inferior product. It’s a stodgy slog of a film with not nearly enough action, a lot of clichés, and the most interesting performers (Steven Williams, Christopher Cary, and Prof. Toru Tanaka) given far less screen time than oak tree star Chuck Norris and the similarly unpersuasive Soon-Tek Oh. Also, I hope you like your Reagan-era rah-rah stuff because this isn’t just a Reagan-era rah-rah action film, it actually uses footage of Reagan to make things extra obvious.

Norris seems intimidating right up until he opens his mouth less than two minutes into the film. Dude gives off more of a dorky lumberjack vibe than an actor/action hero to me. He does wear a hat this time though, which is the closest he’s ever gotten to being cool. Otherwise he strangely fades into the background of his own film here…possibly because he has literally morphed into a tree during filming. Possibly an entire forest. As for arch nemesis Soon-Tek Oh, the best I can say for him is that he’s lucky that the acting from Norris and the bit players is not only terrible but even worse than the previous film. James Hong he’s not, he’s remarkably stiff and completely non-threatening. That’s a shame because boy does this film go out of its way to present the Viet Cong (or at least this one fucking guy right here) in the most heinous light possible. This is a guy who burns people alive for crying out loud. In what is really an extended squash, if that’s actually the two actors themselves engaging in the final martial arts fight, Mr. Soon-Tek (or is it Mr. Oh?) doesn’t disgrace himself.

It’s just such a shame that the three most interesting people in the film get the least to do. I’ve liked Steven Williams ever since I saw “21 Jump Street” as a kid, and he tries his best playing a potentially interesting character here. Unfortunately, possibly due to the politics of the day (and those of the lead actor) Williams’ character isn’t really afforded much of a shred of sympathy, though he does get one rather amusing Alec Guinness-esque moment of clarity towards the end which I suppose is the Reagan-era action movie idea of ‘fair and balanced’. Before that though, he spends too many stretches of the film off-screen. Williams sure does look like one lean, mean fighting machine however. As for Christopher Cary, he tries his best with an Australian accent playing an Aussie masquerading as a Brit, but it’s pretty clear to my ears that he’s a Pom masquerading as an Aussie instead. He does however give the film’s best performance…before getting bumped off after five minutes of screen time. ‘Coz this is Chuck’s movie, I guess. I’ve always enjoyed the appearances by former professional wrestler Prof. Toru Tanaka in 80s action films (“The Running Man” in particular), but this time out he’s given the fuzzy end of the lollipop and doesn’t even get to go mano-a-mano with Chuck in a big fight. What a frigging waste, and along with the misuse of Williams, suggests to me that something went wrong here in the editing department perhaps. Still, when Tanaka’s on screen everyone else is invisible.

This is stock-standard POW action stuff, with far more of the POW than the action, unfortunately. So what that results in is a lot of clichés, a lot of boredom, and not much entertainment value. Even the score by Brian May (“Patrick”, “Mad Max”, “Gallipoli”, “Death Before Dishonour”) is cheap and forgettable.

Rating: C