Lance Hool's Missing in Action 2: The Beginning really got to me. It bothered and disturbed me on a deeper level than films like I Spit on Your Grave (1978) and Cannibal Holocaust (1980). Why? Because...well...a lot of what is depicted in this film may have actually happened. Let me explain: the film is about a group of American POWs in North Vietnam. Their leader, Colonel James Braddock (Chuck Norris) is being blackmailed by the camp's commanding officer, Colonel Yin, into confessing to a list of phoney war crimes. To try and make him "confess," Colonel Yin resorts to a series of unspeakable tortures, both physical and psychological, to break Braddock and his men. These tortures take up the majority of the movie. Imagine if the Russian Roulette scene from The Deerhunter (1978) was stretched into a feature length film. This being a Golan/Globus production, we know that eventually Chuck Norris will break out, kill Yin, and save everyone. But the film takes such sadistic pleasure in watching him torment the POWs that it's essentially a rape/revenge film by way of the Vietnam war genre. And, yes, the Vietnamese characters are almost all presented as being completely bereft of redeeming qualities. But here's the kicker: I did some research on how real-life American POWs were treated in North Vietnam and discovered that Missing in Action 2 didn't exaggerate too much (at least for an 80s action film). Is a film like this jingoistic if such things really happened? Nobody seems to think that it's racist to depict Nazis as German. If this were a more "serious" movie by someone like Oliver Stone, would it be considered a masterpiece? Missing in Action 2 certainly left more of an emotional impact than any other film I've seen recently. Is the fact that it's a Golan/Globus Chuck Norris vehicle keeping it from getting the attention that it deserves? I don't know. But I do know that forgetting about this film is an impossibility.
6/10
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