Review: Death Before Dishonour


Fred Dryer plays a Marine Gunnery Sergeant assigned the task of overseeing security at an embassy in a fictional Middle Eastern country. He and his men (who include a youngish Sasha Mitchell) are forced to take action when Colonel Brian Keith is kidnapped by an Arab terrorist helpfully named Jihad (Rockne Tarkington!), and the U.S. Ambassador (Paul Winfield) is too gutless to do a damn thing. Joanna Pacula plays a woman with somewhat ambiguous motives.

 

How in the hell is this not a Michael Dudikoff vehicle from The Cannon Group? No, instead this 1987 military actioner directed by Terry Leonard (a veteran stuntman and 2nd Unit director in his one and only directorial stint), written by John Gatliff (who according to IMDb has no other film credits at all), stars former TV star and former American footballer Fred Dryer (best known for a TV show called “Hunter”) and comes from New World Pictures. It’s a bit classier than a lot of what Cannon churned out, with a surprisingly classy music score from the usually cheapo Aussie composer Brian May (“Mad Max”, “Gallipoli”, “Turkey Shoot”), and generally competent performances.

 

Fred Dryer is perfectly fine in the lead (better than Dudikoff or Chuck Norris would’ve been), but the film does lack a suitable action star with real gravitas, if you ask me. Dryer is more Richard Widmark than Sly Stallone or Bruce Willis, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Brian Keith is his usual excellent, gruff self in a nothing role (what an underrated actor!), and deep-voiced Rockne Tarkington is better as the Arab terrorist than you’d expect an African-American named Rockne Tarkington to be playing an Arab terrorist. His deep voice serves him particularly well. Joanna Pacula isn’t much of an actress but she’s never been hotter than she is here. The worst offender in the cast is, rather surprisingly, the otherwise talented Paul Winfield. He’s actually pretty stiff and stilted, and his Ambassador character is really the Angry Black Police Chief stereotype in disguise, if you ask me.

 

The film is pretty mediocre, but in low-budget 80s action movie terms, that makes it a bit better than average. Pretty violent, pretty racist (not just towards Arabs, but essentially anyone with an accent), though compared to a lot of other low-budget actioners of the time, it’s actually a bit more thoughtful. Perhaps that’s why Cannon (and Chuck Norris) aren’t involved. It’s interesting that an American film from the 1980s, set in the Middle East has a character saying ‘Go home, American. This isn’t your war!’. Real interesting, though there’s no doubt it’s still pro-American and anti-Arab/Islam at the end of the day.

 

If there’s an audience for the horrible and racist “Invasion USA” (and apparently there was and still is), there should be one for this. It’s not bad, especially if you’re into military actioners and hot chicks.

 

Rating: C+

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Hellraiser (2022)

Recovering junkie Odessa A’zion accompanies scuzzy boyfriend Drew Starkey on a break-in where all they find is a weird puzzle box. A’zion later opens the box and after some weird shit happens, A’zion and Starkey figure it might be a good idea to learn more about this messed up trinket. Goran Visnjic plays a millionaire who possessed the box before our protagonist nicked it.   Is there any point in remaking/rebooting “Hellraiser” when the 1987 adaptation of Clive Barker’s original text was written and directed by Barker himself? And is considered a horror classic? On evidence here, absolutely not. Directed by David Bruckner ( “The Signal” ) and scripted by Ben Collins ( “The Night House” ) and Luke Piotrowski (ditto) this is an entirely tedious affair. I took a long time to get on board with the 1987 “Hellraiser” , I have to admit. It was wildly imaginative and original, like a nightmare transplanted on to film. However, the characters were stone cold and left me similarly chilly t
Read more

Review: Boyka: Undisputed

Yuri Boyka (Scott Adkins) is out of prison and fighting for a living, with ambitions for the ‘Most Complete Fighter’ to make a real name for himself. However, after an opponent dies during a fight, the deeply religious Boyka starts to have a crisis of conscience. He tries to make amends with the man’s widow, which eventually pits him against a local gangster (Alon Moni Aboutboul, quite good). Anything with Scott Adkins will generally get me interested, and although this series peaked with the superlative “Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” , this 2017 film from director Todor Chapkanov (director of the SyFy movies “Copperhead” and “Ghost Town” ) is no slouch in a series yet to deliver anything less than solid entertainment. Producer Isaac Florentine is missed in the director’s chair, but Chapkanov gives us at the very least the series’ most dramatically ambitious entry, as Adkins’ ‘most complete fighter’ Yuri Boyka continues on his journey to redemption here. In this one, the
Read more

Review: Ninja 2: Shadow of a Tear

Scott Adkins is once again Casey, an American proponent of the martial art of Ninjutsu. When Casey’s pregnant Japanese wife (Mika Hijii) is rubbed out, he’s on a vengeance mission to find her killers. A friendly face, Nakabara (Kane Kosugi) turns up at the funeral, and suggests Casey come to Thailand to deal with his grief in another country. Casey initially declines, but eventually takes Nakabara up on his offer. However, his wife’s murder still haunts Casey, and with intel supplied by Nakabara, the trail eventually leads Casey to a brutal drug baron named Goro (Shun Sugata).   I was extremely disappointed with the first “Ninja” , but had heard that this 2013 sequel from director Isaac Florentine ( “Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” , “Undisputed III: Redemption” , “Ninja” ) was a damn near masterpiece of the martial-arts action movie genre. Having now finally gotten my hot little hands on it, I’d say the hype is a bit much, but this is unquestionably a much better film than the f
Read more