Missing in Action (1984)

(On Cable TV, August 2019) Let’s not mince words: Missing in Action is not a good movie. It’s not subtle. It’s created to cash in on a very specific sub-strain of American pathology, which is the desire to win all the wars they’ve ever been involved in, even if they have to rewrite history to do it. And yet, despite the low-budget and even lower imagination, Missing in Action may very well be a movie of historical importance. As the story goes, James Cameron’s treatment for what would later become Rambo: First Blood Part II was floating around Hollywood, and one of the production companies interested, the low-rent Cannon group, decided to create a new script out of the idea. But The Cannon Group was not interested in what can be laughingly called the sophistication of the second Rambo film: Here, there are no double-crosses from Americans: Everything is a straightforward jingoistic power fantasy in which American firepower defeat the Vietnamese at last and erase the national embarrassment. It’s straightforward to the point where it becomes iconic, and the film is worth seeing for no other reason than the classic unironic shot in which Chuck Norris inexplicably emerges from a river, big gun blazing. Understandably, Missing in Action became a rich source of inspiration for the second Hot Shots! parody. Amazingly enough, it just may be Norris’s best film—certainly the one where the budget is high enough, the distance between persona and character is slimmest, and the one where self-awareness is kept to a minimum. It was an integral part of the Reaganesque might-make-right action/war movies of the decade, and seemingly runs on pure distilled American pride. Again: I’m not saying that Missing in Action is a good movie … but anyone interested in 1980s Hollywood has to see this.