Action legend Chuck Norris stars in this Vietnam Prisoner of War (POW) film that shamelessly ripped off borrowed many elements from a script for Rambo: First Blood Part II, which had been written by James Cameron and had been doing the rounds in Hollywood for several months. Apparently folks at the Cannon Group had seen the script and quickly put the first two Missing in Action films into production; part 2, which is actually a prequel, was filmed at the same time as this film.

The story sees Colonel James Braddock escaping from a POW camp after seven years of captivity and then returning to Vietnam on a covert mission to rescue the men he had to leave behind. The film was absolutely savaged by critics on its release, with Derek Adams of Time Out saying that the film is “so bad that it defies belief. It’s xenophobic, amateurish and extraordinarily dull”. The biggest problem with the film is that it feels like a handful of set pieces with a lot of padding to fill in the rest of the running time, making it a frustratingly boring experience.

For all of its faults, it does feature this utterly brilliant minute of action, which has to be seen to be believed.

The poster artwork is by Stan Watts, who painted the posters for Invasion USA and The Delta Force, also starring Norris.

The trailer can be seen on YouTube.

Chuck Norris versus David Carradine was always going to be a good match and this is definitely one of Chuck’s better films. His character, a Texas Ranger named J.J. McQuade, was the inspiration behind his successful TV series Walker, Texas Ranger that began 10 years after this was released. In this film, ex-Marine McQuade lives on his own with only a wolf for company and prefers to do things his way. When an army convoy is hijacked and his daughter put in hospital after witnessing the attack, the Texas Ranger reluctantly teams up with an FBI agent (Leon Isaac Kennedy) and ends up facing off against the arms dealer Wilkes (Carradine). The pair go head to head in a series of increasingly violent martial arts and gun battles. The film’s body count is detailed in a YouTube video.

This British quad poster was designed and painted by the British artist Brian Bysouth whilst he was working at the FEREF agency. The artwork is unique to this poster but it has elements that appear on both the Style A and the style B American one sheets. I also have another American one sheet for the film in the collection. In 2012 I interviewed the artist and that article can be found here. Other posters I’ve collected by Brian can be seen by clicking here.

The uncensored trailer can be watched on Youtube. Someone has made a clip called Lone Wolf McQuade in four minutes, which is handy if you never intend to watch the film in full.

Norris versus Carradine was always going to be a good match and this is definitely one of Chuck’s better films. His character, a Texas Ranger named J.J. McQuade, was the inspiration behind his successful TV series Walker, Texas Ranger that began 10 years after this film. This US one sheet features great action artwork by C.W. Taylor.

The uncensored trailer can be watched on Youtube.

Someone has made a clip called Lone Wolf McQuade in four minutes, handy if you never intend to watch the film in full. Also, here’s the film’s body count.