A Movie A Day #137: Braddock: Missing in Action III (1988, directed by Aaron Norris)

Posted on May 25, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Chuck Fucking Norris, dude. Chuck Norris is so cool that continuity bends to his will and thanks him for the opportunity.

Need proof?

Just watch Braddock: Missing in Action III.

The third Missing in Action film starts in 1975, with the fall of Saigon. The communists are taking over. The Americans are fleeing Vietnam. Colonel James Braddock (Chuck FUCKING Norris) is determined to bring his Vietnamese wife to America with him but, when she loses her papers and is not allowed to make her way to the American embassy, Braddock believes that she had been killed. (Keep an eye out for Keith David as the Embassy guard. Only Chuck Norris could overshadow Keith David in a movie.) Heartbroken, Braddock returns to the United States.

Every fan of the Missing in Action franchise knows better. We all know that Chuck was in a POW camp when Saigon fell. In Missing in Action 2, he and his fellow prisoners did not even know if the war had ended. Also, Chuck mentioned having a wife waiting for him back in the United States. What gives?

I can think of only two possible explanations.

Either Chuck Norris and Cannon Films did not care about continuity

Chuck Norris is so cool that, in order to prevent his collected coolness from knocking the Earth off of its axis, the U.S. Army split Chuck’s coolness in half by creating a clone. One clone spent ten years in a POW camp. The other clone escaped during the Fall of Saigon but had to leave behind his wife.

Thirteen years later and back in the U.S., Chuck is contacted by Reverend Polanski (Yehuda Efroni), who tells him that his wife is still alive in Vietnam and that he has a 12 year-old son. Chuck’s boss at the CIA tells him that, under no circumstances, is Chuck to go to Vietnam.

Anyone who thinks they can tell Chuck Norris what do is a fool.

Chuck goes to Vietnam and is reunited with his wife and son. Unfortunately, when Chuck tries to get his new family out of the country, they are captured by sadistic General Quoc (Aki Aleong). Again, Braddock must escape from a Vietnamese prison camp.

Braddock: Missing in Action III was co-written by Chuck Norris and it was directed by his brother, Aaron. It’s a Norris production all the way, which means a lot of heroic shots of Chuck and a lot of bad guys wondering why Chuck is so much better than them.

Braddock was released four years after the first Missing in Action but, more importantly, it was released two years after Oliver Stone’s Platoon changed the way that movies dealt with the war in Vietnam. By the time that Braddock came out, films in which lone American refought and single-handedly won the war were no longer in fashion. Braddock was a flop at the box office and it ended the franchise. However, continuity errors aside, Braddock is actually the best of the Missing in Action films. It features Chuck’s best performance in the series and Chuck searching for his wife and child gives Braddock more emotional weight than the first two Missing in Action films. Maybe Chuck should have co-written and selected the director for all of the films he made for Cannon.

Chuck Norris, dude.

Chuck Fucking Norris.

A Movie A Day #125: Diamonds (1975, directed by Menahem Golan)

Posted on May 12, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Originally, for today’s entry in Movie A Day, I was hoping to follow up my review of Mad Dog Coll by reviewing Hit The Dutchman. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a review-worthy copy of Hit The Dutchman so, instead, I am going to review another film that was directed by Menahem Golan, Diamonds.

Filmed and set in Golan’s home country of Israel, Diamonds is a heist film. Richard Roundtree is Archie, an experienced thief who has just been released from prison. Sally (Barbara Hershey, though she was known as Barbara Seagull when she made this movie) is Archie’s girlfriend. Robert Shaw plays Charles Hodgman, the businessman who recruits Roundtree to help him break into a vault located in the Tel Aviv Diamond Exchange Center. The twist is that the vault was designed by Charles’s twin brother, Earl. Earl is also played by Robert Shaw and the two of them have an intense sibling rivalry. If you have ever wanted to see Robert Shaw fight himself in a karate match, Diamonds is the film to see!

(In true Golan fashion, Shaw wears a puffy wig whenever he is supposed to be Earl.)

If he had not died, in 1978, at the tragically young age of 51, Robert Shaw would probably be known as one of our greatest actors. As it is, he will always be remembered for playing Quint in Jaws and Red Grant in From Russia With Love. (I am also a fan of his performance in the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.) Diamonds is typical of the many films in which Shaw was better than what he had to work with. He gives two good performances but even he is occasionally overshadowed by the swaggering cool and floppy hats of Richard Roundtree. As for Barbara Seagull/Hershey, she was, as always, beautiful but she had little to do (which was a common problem for her until she rebooted her career with her performance in The Stunt Man). Shelley Winters is also in this movie, providing tepid comic relief as an American tourist. (It’s typical of the type of roles in which, following her performance in The Poseidon Adventure, Winters got typecast.)

Barbara Hershey’s beautiful. Richard Roundtree’s cool. Robert Shaw is Robert Shaw. The Israeli location distinguishes it from similar heist films. The plot may be implausible and the dialogue may be weak but, just as he did with Get Carter, Roy Budd offers up a great score. Diamonds is typical of many Golan films. It’s not good but it is damn entertaining.

Embracing the Melodrama Part II #79: Over the Top (dir by Menahem Golan)

Posted on May 20, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For the longest time, whenever I would see a movie at the DFW Alamo Drafthouse, I would always found myself watching a clip that the Alamo management chose to show before the actual movie. I can’t really remember the specific reason why they were showing the clip. I imagine it was meant to advertise some special series of testosterone-fueled movies but I really couldn’t tell you for sure.

However, I will never forget the clip itself.

It basically featured Sylvester Stallone arm wrestling a bald giant with a mustache. As they both struggled to see who would slam down whose wrist first, a crowd of rednecks went wild. The bald giant growled and groaned. Meanwhile, Sylvester Stallone was busy … stalloning. Seriously, you would not believe some of the expressions that passed across Stallone’s face over the course of this one scene.

And finally, after much growling and a lot of constipated facial expressions, Stallone slammed down the guy’s wrist. The crowed went wild. Stallone stood up and did the Rocky pose with both of his arms raised in triumph.

Meanwhile, in the audience, I said, “What zee Hell did I just watch?”

(Yes, I did pronounce the with a z. It was cuter that way.)

Well, it turns out that the scene was taken from a 1987 film called Over The Top. Now, the scene itself isn’t included in the montage below but I think watching this video will still give you a general sense of what Over The Top is like.

Over The Top turns up on cable fairly regularly and that’s how, after several visits to the Alamo, that I ended up watching the actual film. Over The Top is an appropriate title because the film’s melodrama truly is over-the-top. It’s in no way good but it definitely has a “what the Hell am I watching” sort of appeal.

Stallone plays Lincoln Hawk and let’s just take a few minutes to appreciate that name. When you’ve got a name like Lincoln Hawk, you know that you’re never going to be an accountant or a teacher or … well, really, anything that a person not named Lincoln Hawk would be. Instead, when you’ve got a name like Lincoln Hawk, you become a truck driver. And you marry a rich woman (played by Susan Blakely), despite the disapproval of her judgmental father (Robert Loggia). You have a son and, if you have a sense of humor, you name him Booth Hawk. Or, in the case of this film, you name him Michael Cutler Hawk (played by David Mendenhall, who was also in Space Raiders) and send him off to military school.

When Lincoln’s wife dies, her father takes custody of Michael. Even after Lincoln rams his truck into the front of the mansion, Michael still wants to stay with his grandfather. However, Lincoln can’t spend his time mourning the loss of his family. He has big plans — like starting his own trucking company.

And how is Lincoln going to do that?

By winning the World Armwrestling Championship, of course!

(Oh come on … that makes total sense in a 1987 Sylvester Stallone movie sort of way!)

Will Lincoln win the championship? Will Michael bond with his father? Will Lincoln and his father-in-law develop a grudging respect? If you don’t know the answer, you’ve never seen the movie before…

Remember how, when I was talking about the Kevin Bacon film Quicksilver, I mentioned how some films were obviously made by people who simply could not understand that not everyone was as fascinated by some silly activity as he or she was? That’s definitely the case with Over The Top, a film that takes place in an alternative universe where everyone in the entire world is obsessed with arm wrestling.

And it’s all rather silly but it’s also very watchable, in much the same way that American Anthem was very watchable. Over the Top is not a good film but it’s just so over the top that you owe it to yourself to see it at least once.