- Title
- Missing in Action
- AKA
- --
- Year of Film
- 1984
- Director
- Joseph Zito
- Starring
- Chuck Norris, M. Emmet Walsh, David Tress, Lenore Kasdorf, James Hong, Ernie Ortega, Pierrino Mascarino, Erich Anderson, Joseph Carberry
- Origin of Film
- USA
- Genre(s) of Film
- Chuck Norris, M. Emmet Walsh, David Tress, Lenore Kasdorf, James Hong, Ernie Ortega, Pierrino Mascarino, Erich Anderson, Joseph Carberry,
- Type of Poster
- One sheet
- Style of Poster
- Teaser
- Origin of Poster
- USA
- Year of Poster
- 1984
- Designer
- Unknown
- Artist
- Stan Watts
- Size (inches)
- 27 1/16" x 41"
- SS or DS
- SS
- NSS #
- --
- Tagline
- The war's not over until the last man comes home.
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.