Meanwhile Lin is packing for America, leaving behind most
of her possessions to a friend, who apparently isn’t satisfied with the nice
dresses and decides to steal Lin’s bracelet. The building is destroyed and
Braddock arrives to see a charred corpse being carried out. The face is burned
beyond recognition, but the bracelet he gave his wife is on the arm, so he
assumes it’s his wife. Lin is on her way to the embassy, but her purse
containing her papers is stolen, so she has trouble gaining access.
The scene at the embassy has some nice little details,
like shots of the army blowing up its own trucks, and the flag and embassy sign
being removed while the crowd surges. But then as Braddock is flown out on a
helicopter, he looks up at the blades, and that shot is followed by a shot of a
ceiling fan (making me think of Apocalypse Now).
The film then takes us to Washington D.C. in present day
(well, present day as of the release of the film – 1988), when Reverend
Polanski (Yehuda Efroni), a priest from a children’s mission in Vietnam, tells
Braddock that his wife is alive and that he has a twelve-year-old son. Braddock
doesn’t believe him, but a man named Littlejohn at the CIA inadvertently
confirms the information. Littlejohn warns Braddock, “Don’t step on any toes.”
Braddock replies: “I don’t step on toes, Littlejohn. I step on necks.”
It’s such a silly line, and it’s accompanied by an imposing musical cue, which
makes it all the more delightfully goofy. But that’s part of the enjoyment of
watching this film now. After all, this is a 1980s action movie. Anyway, off
Braddock goes to rescue his wife and son.
And we get fights and stunts and car chases. It’s not
long before he finds Lin and the boy living in a shack. But things can’t be
that easy for James Braddock. The boy resents him and is frightened. And soon
they’re surrounded by soldiers, including General Quoc (Aki Aleong), who seems
to hold a personal grudge against Braddock. And things get pretty serious
pretty quickly.
There are some good moments in the film. I love the way
Quoc seems to become impatient with his own torturous game. And there is a fairly
intense scene later on involving one of the female children and a soldier. But
of course there is some heavy-handed filmmaking as well, like when we get not
one, but two shots of a child’s doll being left behind. This film was directed
by Aaron Norris, a stunt coordinator whose directorial efforts have been almost
entirely made up of projects starring his brother Chuck. And Chuck Norris was
one of the writers on this particular film. Still, the movie is enjoyable in
just the way you expect it to be. I used to own it on videocassette, and I had
a good time revisiting it on Blu-ray.
By the way, the song that takes us into the closing
credits is one of the worst songs I’ve ever heard in my life, with lyrics like
“When I look into your eyes, what do I see/It is the love of freedom staring
back at me/I can almost see the eagle take the sky, see her fly/It is our love
of freedom that has always kept us strong.” Yikes!
Braddock: Missing In Action III is scheduled to be
released on Blu-ray on March 15, 2016 through Shout! Factory. The disc contains
no special features.
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