Missing in Action

Directed by Joseph Zito, Missing in Action follows Chuck Norris’ James Braddock as he mounts a dangerous mission to rescue several MIA American soldiers in Vietnam. It’s straight-forward subject matter that’s employed to predominantly tiresome and tedious effect by Zito, as the filmmaker, armed with a screenplay by James Bruner, delivers an often astonishingly sluggish endeavor that fares especially poorly within its lackadaisical, uneventful first half – with the context-free (and far-from-exciting) action sequence that kicks off the proceedings certainly indicative of the underwhelming narrative to come. And while Zito has punctuated the proceedings with an extremely small handful of entertaining interludes, with this particularly true of an admittedly engrossing hotel-room fight, Missing in Action, for the bulk of its overlong running time, comes off as a dimly-lit disaster that squanders its star’s agreeable performance and seemingly foolproof setup. By the time the appreciatively over-the-top climax rolls around, which arrives far too late to make any real difference, Missing in Action has cemented its place as a forgettable 1980s relic that feels like it should be so much better.

*1/2 out of ****