"Arrow Recommends is a column that has my sorry ass advise older movies to your royal asses. I will be flexible in terms of genres i.e. I will cover whatever the bleep I want. For now, it will be the way to keep my voice on the site."
It's Double Bill of Chuck Norris time! Pin's out the grenade! Lets mow MIA Part 2 and Part 3 down!
PLOT: Vietnam 1972; Braddock and his team are captured and kept prisoner in a POW camp by the psychotic, obsessive, chicken loathing, childish and might be in the closet Colonel Yin. 10 years later, Braddock has had enough with Yin's crap and decides to do the human laundry Norris style.
"You really didn't think I'd leave without making sure you were dead? " – Braddock
LOWDOWN: MISSING IN ACTION 2 THE BEGINNING (GET THE COMBO DVD HERE or the MIA 2 BLU-RAY HERE) is the prequel to the 1984 surprise hit MISSING IN ACTION. A fact for ya; both MISSING IN ACTION and MISSING IN ACTION 2 were shot back to back and we're supposed to be put out in a linear fashion. But the producers liked Part 2 the best (which was the PART 1 we know), so they released it first, hence this PART 2 being a prequel. Did that make sense for ya? I sure hope so, cause I'm not explaining it again! What can I say, it's CHUCK NORRIS going from mustache to beard (his best era) and kicking some serious posterior. The characters were hilariously cliched, the dialogue at times infantile and the chain of events was mucho predictable in the sense that I knew where it was going to go the whole time. But for a film of this ilk… ALL GOOD!
Ask yourself this question: How can you go wrong with a film that asks us to believe, that a Vietnamese Colonel can be so infatuated with ONE Yankee soldier, that he'd keep a whole POW camp up and running for over 10 YEARS (7 years out of the 10 were after the war was over), for the sole reason of having King Kong Braddock sign some bogus confession that won't serve anybody but that twats ego. Like the Vietnamese government would somehow approve of this? COME ON! Communist Tax Payers money well spent I guess.
But that was part of the beauty of MIA 2; it was so preposterous that it became highly engaging! Witness the Colonel playing childish mind games on Norris to break him. Shit, the Colonel even went as far as having one of his soldiers dress up like him and then killed to fool Norris out of his hiding place. WTF!? Is this remnants of the Vietnam War or a pre-school playground for morons? Only the 80's and the production company to end all production company CANNON could give us such priceless cheese. Apart from the laughable drama, you can't deny the TOP NOTCH one liners, the joy of seeing Norris be so damn pissed off all the time or the visceral, loud, brash and mucho entertaining action sequences found in this flick. That final mano et mano fight was pure GENIUS! One for the books! Norris f*cked that dude up and then some! Guns, knives, nades, Norris' facial hair, old-fashioned flame thrower fun…. the toppings were all sprinkled about and in spades! Not as good on paper as MIA Part 1 but just as thrilling for the wrong and right reasons! I had so much fun! And now lets take on Part 3…
BRADDOCK: MISSING IN ACTION PART 3
PLOT: In 1975 during the fall Saigon, Braddock loses his wife and he thinks that she's RIP. Don't ask me how he was able to witness the fall of Saigon since he was in a POW Camp at that time according to Part 2, only Norris and his beard knows. So, years later, Norris and his tight ass jeans find out that his broad is still kicking and with a brat in tow at that. So he heads back to Nam, encounters yet another "nutty for Braddock" Viet leader and kills everything in sight, shirtless half the time no less. Party time!
LOWDOWN: "I don't step on toes Little John, I step on necks" Only Chuck Norris can get away with a line like that. It had to be said. With that out of the way, BRADDOCK MISSING IN ACTION 3 paralleled MIA 1 in terms of structure; somebody is missing, they're in Nam, Norris finds out, goes in the country illegally via some nutso arms dealer and then streamlines an extraction while being chased by some loon General with a MAMMOTH hard-on for him.
MISSING IN ACTION 3 (GET THE COMBO DVD HERE or the MIA 3 BLU-RAY HERE) was more straightforward and by the numbers than say Part 2 and even Part 1. It copied RAMBO FIRST BLOOD PART 2 in many instances as to the action set pieces (shite they even copied the titling: BRADDOCK: MISSING IN ACTION PART 3), this one was a as predictable as they come, minus one scene that took me TOTALLY aback (I won't tell). But that didn't mean that mucho thrills were not to be had. This sucka was fast paced, the body count HUGE, the explosions ample and watching Norris destroy everything and everybody in sight was a virginal blast! The more the clock ticked forward, the bigger the obstacles got and the angrier Norris became – hence beard charged CARNAGE!
Moreover, the baddie General Quoc's (Aki Aleong) yearning for Braddock’s demise 9and probably his ass) had me in stitches. Every time he yelled out BRADDOCK at the top of his lungs, I'd crack the hell up. He also gave the Colonel in Part 2 a run for his chump change as to his disturbing fixation on Braddock. Then again this guy didn't keep a prison camp open for 10 years for ONE MAN, so the Colonel in part 2 wins Braddock's heart. But I digress.
Look this was not the smartest of films, plot holes were many, dialogue basic, Norris's performance was his usual stone faced shtick, but hey man, its an 80's, Cannon, Norris, one man army action flick. I didn't need substance or common sense over here, all I expected was countless and elaborate ASS WHOOPING with a side order of MACHO BULLSHIT and that's exactly what I got! THANK YOU! So there you have it. Life’s got you down? Your lover left you? Having a hard time at work? F*ck all that! Crack open a brew, down it, crack open another one and tap this double bill to end all double bills. BRADDOCK!!!!