6.1 | / 10 |
Users | 3.5 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
Colonel James Braddock is an American officer who spent seven years in a North Vietnamese POW camp, then escaped 10 years ago
Starring: Chuck Norris, M. Emmet Walsh, David Tress, Lenore Kasdorf, James HongAction | 100% |
War | 36% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Adventure | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
1908 kbps
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
Released a year before Rambo: First Blood Part II, Joseph Zito's Missing in Action (1984) was one of the first films in the post-Vietnam era to deal with remaining American POWs and MIAs in Southeast Asia. When the movie opened in November '84, critics frequently compared it to a somewhat different film from one year earlier. Ted Kotcheff's Uncommon Valor (1983) featured a commanding performance by Gene Hackman as a Marine colonel who leads a rescue mission bound for Laos where it's believed the colonel's son and other POWs are still being held. Kotcheff's follow-up to First Blood (1982) also starred Robert Stack, Fred Ward, and Patrick Swayze. The ongoing issue of missing servicemen was becoming such a hot topic around Hollywood that another script also titled Missing in Action was about to go in production at the Cannon Group. (Screenwriter James Bruner gives lots of detailed pre-production anecdotes about the competing screenplays in a new interview on this disc.) Zito emerged as a viable commercial director after his Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter was a smash at the box office and Cannon Films sent him and his cast/crew to the Philippines with a modest production budget of $2.5 million.
James Braddock (Chuck Norris) is having recurring dreams about his captivity in a Viet Cong prison camp. The ex-Army colonel spent eight months there as a POW and seven years as an MIA across Vietnam. Braddock believes that the comrades he served with are still being held so he agrees to travel to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) with a US-sponsored investigation team headed by Sen. Maxwell Porter (David Tress). As the American delegates deplane, they are greeted by Gen. Tran (James Hong) but Braddock remembers him as one of his prison tormentors so he refuses to receive the general's extended handshake. At the conference, the Vietnamese spurn any possibility that live US POWs reside in any of their territories. An impatient Braddock dresses himself in black and breaks into Tran's bedroom where he holds a dagger to his old foe's neck demanding answers. Later, Braddock travels to Bangkok where he tracks down an Army buddy, the burly Jack Tucker (M. Emmet Walsh). Braddock and "Tuck" locate a secluded warehouse full of grenades, machine guns, and ammunition. The tag team heads to the Mekong River where it hopes to jump a sneak attack on the unsuspecting VC and spring their war allies out of the gates.
Col. Braddock on a platform assuming control of the operation.
Missing in Action makes its second appearance on Blu-ray courtesy of Shout! Factory which has released it as a "Collector's Edition." This fifth feature film directed by Zito appears in its originally exhibited ratio of 1.85:1 on a BD-50. The MPEG-4 AVC-encoded transfer gets a mean video bitrate of 30000 kbps for the feature and a total bitrate of 35.55 Mbps for the full disc. Cinematographer Joćo Fernandes's Metrocolor as seen on Shout!'s transer looks like it was taken from the same or a similar source as the 2012 MGM/Fox bare bones release. As Casey Broadwater noted in his review of that region-free disc, some mild brightness flickering is present in a couple of scenes. Additionally, there are a few light scratches visible on the bleak skies of daytime Vietnam and Bangkok. Aside from those blemishes, the print is in very solid shape. Missing in Action looked a notch brighter on my calibrated LED than it does throughout these screenshots. A touch of DNR has been applied but grain is still present, though perhaps not to the degree as on the older disc. I think that density and definition of colors is slightly better in the image on Shout!'s transfer. My score is 3.75.
A dozen scene selections are allotted for movie access on the main menu and also can be skipped to via remote control.
To my surprise, Missing in Action was originally recorded in only mono, which is reproduced here as a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Dual Mono (1908 kbps, 24-bit). Echoing Casey, I didn't notice any hissing, pops, or crackles on this track either. Dialogue is front-heavy but is on the low-end thanks to Morris's soft-spoken demeanor. There are some lines spoken in Vietnamese and Shout! has embedded white English subtitles on the lower-fourth of the image (see Screenshot #20). I was hoping that Shout! could have done a stereo remix as f/x drawn from gunfire and explosions sounds unspectacular. Jay Chattaway's electronic/orchestral score sounds clear and is spread evenly across the front speakers.
There are also English SDH for the English sound track that can be activated on the main menu or via remote.
I don't dislike Missing in Action but it neither provides any underlying commentary on the MIA/POW controversy nor is it a stable and consistent action movie. It may be superior to The Hanoi Hilton (1987) but I much prefer Uncommon Valor and First Blood Part II to it. If you already own the MGM BD-50, I would recommend upgrading to this Shout! C.E. While the transfer and lossless audio offer only marginal if negligible improvements over its predecessor, the commentary track with Zito and interview with Bruner are both substantial and highly informative. This release is FOR FANS ONLY.
1985
1986
1985
1988
2K Restoration
1988
Special Collector's Edition
1988
2012
1968
1986
2002
2011
1990
2003
Rambo
1982
2012
2008
2019
2018
2002
1991