Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

Braddock: Missing in Action III Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman October 22, 2018

“This time, it’s personal” might be a punch line more so than a legitimate tag line these days, but it would certainly fit Braddock: Missing in Action III, a film that is positioned as the most personal of the three Missing in Action films that are perhaps eclipsed only by the television phenomenon Walker, Texas Ranger as the most identifiable entertainment brand featuring the multitalented Chuck Norris. In the film, Braddock finds himself back in-country in search of a long-lost loved one and winds up fighting the Vietnam War one more time in what becomes a battle to save the innocent from a ruthless military madman. Interestingly, this is, chronologically, the second film in the series and does play a part in interrupted franchise chronology, but as a standalone adventure it's not a bad little film.

Colonel James Braddock (Norris) has a front-row seat to the fall of Saigon in 1975. In the scramble to evacuate, he attempts to find his wife, a Vietnamese-born U.S. embassy employee, in time to get her out. When he reaches her apartment, it explodes. A badly burned and unidentifiable body is carted away, wearing a one-of-a-kind bracelet that he once gifted her, cementing in his mind that the remains belong to his wife. More than a decade later, Braddock is living a life of loneliness and regret in Washington, D.C. when he meets a man, a minister named Reverend Polanski (Yehuda Efroni), who claims his wife is alive, and that she and his son, whom he did not know he had, are living in Vietnam. Immediately thereafter, he is approached by the CIA, a meeting which indirectly confirms the rumor. He is warned not to return to Vietnam and mount a rescue operation. Of course, Braddock ignores the word of warning and makes his way back to Vietnam where he begins a desperate, obstacle-filled pursuit to reunite with the wife he believed dead and the son he never knew he had. Standing in his way is a vicious Vietnamese officer, General Quoc (Aki Aleong), who will stop at nothing to keep Braddock separated from his family.

Missing in Action III is a film of tonal misalignment, not so much by way of narrative discrepancies but rather by a series of events that leave the character, and the viewer, excited, heartbroken, surprised, and heartbroken again, and that's all before the film shifts to a hopelessly dark and borderline macabre middle act sequence. The film plays out a very dark stretch when Braddock’s world is upended for the second time in his life and General Quoc puts his son Van Tan Cang’s (Roland Harrah III) life in Braddock’s hands in one of the more dark and disturbing scenes ever filmed, at least for an otherwise routine Action movie where expectations are for a hero to gun down enemies, not suffer a mental anguish worse than any physical pain or the test of endurance he is forced to perform with his son's life literally dangling in the balance.

When the film flips to its big, climactic action sequence, audiences are treated to one of the more iconic examples of classic 80s genre filmmaking. It’s a sequence in which the hero, in this case Braddock, stands in the open, turning to shoot every enemy as they appear on the scene, mowing them down with precision accuracy (while shooting from the hip and rarely having to stop to reload), all the while countless enemies, even in positions of advantage with numbers and firepower on their side, fail to hit a stationary target with a hail of machine gun fire. As corny as it may be, it’s a fun sequence, reminiscent of a Rambo movie and, considering the trials Braddock has been through and the lives he's fighting to save, it's easy to root him on, as unrealistic as the sequence maybe.

Braddock: Missing in Action III Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

While Braddock: Missing in Action III's 1080p image appears largely proficient, presenting good detailing and color, there's a mildly processed look to it, at times, like a very fine meshy screen has been overlaid atop the image, most noticeable in select, often lower-light scenes. Shout's! Blu-ray disc handles darker scenes well otherwise, presenting nicely maintained and manicured black levels that are never troublingly elevated or crushing out shadow detailing. As far as colors go, the movie can be fairly flat and drab, but bright, fiery explosions in the third act satisfy, and the film finds relatively true colors to blue skies, green G.I. fatigues and vegetation, beige Vietnamese army uniforms, and red blood. A light grain structure is maintained throughout, and textures are fairly strong. The image appears inherently a touch soft and viewers won't find new-film complexities, but core facial features, clothes, and environments, ranging from urban Saigon locales to a dingy prison interior, appear sufficiently revealing. Fans should be fairly pleased with this release.

Braddock: Missing in Action III Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shout! Factory's two-channel lossless DTS track is proficient in delivery, never yielding anything of sonic excitement but conveying core music and effects well enough. There is some decent traversal across the front, such as when a jet flies through in the 12-minute mark. The track also enjoys adequate width to light rainfall in chapter three around the 35-minute mark, followed by rumbles of thunder which find good stretch and separation a few minutes later. Gunfire is suitably crisp with good spacing, particularly a shootout at the 57-minute mark. The lack of surround channels means a limited sound field for the large-scale battles, but the channels at work do a fair job of creating enough of a bullet-hail frenzy to set the stage. Music is suitably clear and detailed but a few moments come across as shallow and muddled. Dialogue images nicely towards the center is largely trouble-free.

Braddock: Missing in Action III Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of Braddock: Missing in Action III contains no supplemental content. No DVD or digital copies are included. As is often the case with Shout! Factory releases, a reversible cover is included and, again as is often the case (for this reviewer's eyes, anyway), the reverse side is the more appealing option.

Braddock: Missing in Action III Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Despite its extremely dark middle stretch and cliché action finale, Braddock: Missing in Action III is a solid film with a tangibly "personal" feel. It's easy to feel for Braddock, to understand the loss he experiences (twice, actually) and the motivation that drives him to rescue not only his child, but dozens more caught up in a bad situation. The world tries to take everything from him, but he courageously, and with the help of some movie magic, fights back against the odds in the name of right. Shout! Factory's Blu-ray release of Braddock: Missing in Action III features relatively solid 1080p video, adequate two-channel lossless audio, and unfortunately no supplemental content. Recommended, particularly to 80s Action movie fans.