This review was written in advance of Chuck Norris passing away on March 19,2026 following a medical emergency. It’s not exactly written to be a tribute or an in memoriam to Norris, but more of a typical review of Missing In Action. That said, this movie is one of the more important ones in his filmography and the start of a franchise we will return to later in the year. It will be at that point that there will be more to say about the passing of an 80s action icon.

Oh boy, it’s time for some Chuck Norris/Cannon Films goodness on this week’s B-Movie Enema!

1984’s Missing in Action is kind of an important movie for our two primary entities. First and foremost, this was the first film Chuck Norris made for The Cannon Group and producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus. That also meant that Cannon got Chuck Norris, an action star already, to more or less become the face for the company for years to come. This movie also brings director Joseph Zito back for another go at B-Movie Enema. Zito had previously directed The Prowler in 1981, but 1984 probably brought his two most recognizable films to his filmography – Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter and Missing in Action. In 1985, Zito, Cannon, and Norris teamed up again for another movie that really should find its way to the blog someday soon, Invasion U.S.A.

It’s really hard not to compare Missing in Action to 1982’s First Blood. First Blood probably kicked off the subgenre that Letterboxd likes to call vetsploitation. And how could it not? It was Sylvester Stallone in a really good performance as John Rambo, which then led to several leading action characters in the 80s being somehow a part of the Vietnam War. Missing in Action originated as a treatment by James Cameron for Rambo: First Blood Part II. That’s where the Rambo flicks and the Missing in Action series both get their pretty tight similarities. Golan and Globus totally owned up to the fact that Cameron’s treatment served as the inspiration for their series. So they released Missing in Action and Missing in Action 2: The Beginning as quickly as they could to get it out ahead of Rambo to avoid any legal issues. I wasn’t entirely sure how that avoided issues, but whatever, it was the Go-Go Boys doing what they do best, go-going.

Chuck Norris was a major part of getting this movie made. He was approached to play a character that would be dealing with POWs during the whole Vietnam War POW situation that, quite frankly, only added to the deep cuts the American collective psyche had taken over the course of the conflict in Southeast Asia. Despite First Blood being well-liked and creating a major action character in John Rambo, and the late 70s saw some Oscar-winning Vietnam movies, it wasn’t a very popular idea in Hollywood to have a Vietnam war hero in a more jingoistic flavor, like it was to have World War II heroes portrayed the way they were. Norris wanted to do the movie to honor his brother Wieland, who served in Vietnam. He also wanted to try to instill a more positive attitude about that war, but still felt the war itself was a tragedy. But being a conservative and a very patriotic dude, he wanted to kind of ride the high he felt with Ronald Reagan in the White House to get this more positive movie made about the people who fought in Vietnam.

And you know who can’t pass up the chance for a real patriotic and jingoistic flick? You better believe it would be Cannon Films.

As this action spectacular starts, we are in the jungles of Vietnam. All seems nice and serene until explosions of war… and Chuck Norris. Norris is Col. James Braddock. He’s leading his group of soldiers through a hailfire of grenades and explosives. He’s so dedicated to his troops that it looks like they are also evacuating the dead and dying. He leaves no one behind.

As the soldiers flee through the jungles, American choppers are flying in to extract them. It’s a daring escape. There’s Charlie all over the place, and I’m not talking Charlie Norris. It’s a difficult extraction. The heavy fire causes at least one of the choppers to be destroyed, with all on board killed. The final chopper lands, while Braddock clears out the VC soldiers hiding and still firing on them. Braddock is injured and watches helplessly as a member of the Viet Cong stabs members of his battalion with his bayonet. He jumps down with active grenades to kill the guy for killing them.

Now, I gotta imagine that last bit was part of a dream? Otherwise, he’d be hella-sploded? But then again, this IS Chuck Norris, the man who, I honestly believe, if exploded, would be able to reconstitute his body a la the Wolf Man in The Monster Squad. Either way, this was an exciting first sequence of the movie. After he goes kamikaze on the VC soldier, Braddock wakes up from a dream. It’s just under a decade later. The television in the background talks about Vietnam War soldiers who are still missing in action or being held as prisoners of war.

Braddock was captured by the Viet Cong. According to a later piece of dialogue, he supposedly spent several months as a prisoner of war before spending another seven years with “Missing in Action” status before escaping last year. The news report is talking specifically about the possibility that Vietnam had American soldiers prisoner from a war that was long since concluded. There’s an envoy of congresspeople going over to Ho Chi Minh City to investigate and, I assume, request the release of those soldiers.

Braddock is, understandably, haunted by his memories of being a prisoner of war. He remembers how he and the other soldiers were treated as prisoners. When American forces attempted to rescue him and the others he was imprisoned with, they were used as human shields, and when one of the Vietnamese soldiers was killed, that would mean one of the prisoners would be shot dead as retribution.

Braddock is also one of the most well-known and outspoken supporters of the effort to rescue and free any and all P.O.W.s still being held in Vietnam. He has no solid proof that there are still American soldiers there. He can’t even say if there’s any proof that the prison he escaped from still exists. However, the congressmen going to Ho Chi Minh City have asked him to come with them. He agrees to go, but only if he can use this to set up his own clandestine mission to free the P.O.W.s.

Senator Maxwell Porter is leading the delegation to Vietnam. He’s not entirely friendly with Braddock. He thinks he dresses like a fuckface. Braddock isn’t sure who he’s supposed to be trying to impress. He certainly is uninterested in impressing General Tran (played by the always wonderful James Hong). Porter and State Department lady Ann Fitzgerald are more than happy to shake the hand of the General and accept the warm welcome to the People’s Republic of Vietnam. But Braddock? Yeah, fuck that shit. He refuses to shake the General’s hand even at the stern insistence of the Senator.

The wounds may be old, Charlie, but they are still fresh.

Also at the airport when the envoy from the United States arrives is General Vinh. Vinh is the mean son of a bitch who ran the prison where Braddock was held and tortured. Of course, he’s more than happy to stare the bad guy down and think back to when he had bad stuff done to him.

I do like how this movie uses flashbacks as if we’re actually in Braddock’s shoes and experiencing Vietnam War flashbacks. That was something that was kind of a trope of movies and TV shows, and sometimes the butt of jokes in comedies, about the messed up Vietnam War vet unable to return home without being so full of PTSD that he would delve into these manic flashbacks that would reduce the guy to a puddle of goop as he relived all the torture of war or being held prisoner or whatever. I don’t honestly know where this exists on the timeline of instances of this trope being used, but it is effectively telling us that Braddock has serious issues without having to go into that bleeding-heart liberal bullshit of having our big, burly, strong man talking about his feelings and possibly *gasp* shedding a tear.

General Tran is ready for Braddock’s presence. Tran trots in about a half dozen guys who have made sworn statements that Col. Braddock was a war criminal. He supposedly killed helpless women, children, and elderly people during the war. Another trope of Vietnam War soldiers in movies was that they would be accused of killing and raping the Vietnamese women in the various villages the Americans passed through. There are some very good movies that tackle these accusations. This movie is not so much interested in going thaaat far. But far enough to have the head of Vietnam flat out call Braddock a war criminal who had a price on his head during the war.

The power of Chuck Norris is fully on display here. He stares each of the farmers and other bumpkins that Tran brought into this press conference in the eye. The last guy in the lineup sheepishly breaks eye contact and apologizes to Braddock. He’s no dummy. He forgives the old man because he knew Tran was interested in keeping the appearance of Vietnam as the good guy. To do this, he needed to make sure that the Americans either looked like the aggressors or at least jeopardized their efforts to uncover any remaining P.O.W. camps.

Again, Braddock isn’t here to impress anyone or play diplomat. Oh, no. He’s here to drink your fuckin’ beer, wear a cowboy tuxedo, and antagonize every Vietnamese soldier still holding a title ten years after the war ended. He goes to a reception where he confronts Vinh, who tells him he may have escaped this country once, but he may not be so lucky to do it a second time. He also gets confronted by Tran, who asks him if it was true that he allowed ten of his soldiers to die in prison, all because he refused to admit that he committed war crimes. So yeah, Braddock is fucking with Vinh, and Tran is fucking with Braddock. Clearly, they don’t know that Chuck Norris will likely either kick them in their faces or shoot them with a big machine gun, or, hell, both. It’ll probably be both.

Braddock accepts an invitation from Ann for a nightcap. He’s followed closely by a couple of Vietnamese guys. He uses the privacy of their supposed nightcap to change into an all-black outfit and sneak out of the hotel to take a look around the city to see “how it’s changed” since the war. Ann is not so big a fan of this at first because they 1) are not supposed to leave the hotel, and 2) she was meant to keep Braddock out of trouble. But, come on, honey… This is Chuck fuckin’ Norris. If this guy is gonna go out in all black clothes to sneak around Ho Chi Minh City, he’s gonna go out in all black clothes to sneak around Ho Chi Minh City.

I do have some questions here. Let’s start with the first question I have from a chronological standpoint. If Braddock was truly being held as a prisoner for war crimes he supposedly committed, how can he be allowed back into the country? Sure, sure… He’s there at the President’s request, and, I assume, has some sort of diplomatic immunity since he is part of the Senator’s envoy, but I would think this is kinda crazy. After all, he supposedly only escaped, like, a year ago…? The timeline, admittedly, is a bit wonky based on what’s said in the movie and what’s in the Wikipedia article.

But then again, maybe I’m a fool for trying to really get any kind of realistic understanding of a Cannon Chuck Norris movie.

Second, the first place he goes after sneaking out of the hotel is to General Tran’s house. If anything, and I mean ANYthing happens here to a high-ranking official, especially after being called a war criminal in front of an international group of press people, wouldn’t it seemingly HAVE to be Braddock who did the thing? Would that get the Senator and State Department Lady Ann in trouble too? Like, could they all become prisoners and face likely trumped-up charges for their shenanigans?

Yes, yes… Chuck Norris is a badass, sure, sure… But I mean it. I feel like you’ve kind of invited a crazy person to your big international diplomatic mission to find out if some of our boys are still alive in some sort of prison camp. Wouldn’t this be a massive risk?

Oh my fucking god, he’s gonna kill General Tran.

Well, okay, he just holds the knife up to the General’s throat and tells him that how he answers his questions will determine whether or not he lives or dies. So he asks him where the M.I.A.s are. Tran tells him what he knows. He turns Tran onto his frontside and tells him that if he moves, he’ll kill him. Tran pulls out a gun from under his pillow and fires, and oh my fucking good, Braddock kills General Tran.

Welp… Braddock has now started an international incident. That incident? He’s committed an act of war. I believe General Tran was the HEAD OF STATE of Vietnam. An American, in the country as a member of a special envoy, to request information about the possible holding of American prisoners of war, just killed the head cheese of the country. Okay, sure, sort of self-defense in the moment, but he’s also not supposed to have left the hotel, and he broke into the guy’s home after committing assault on his guards and killed the motherfucker.

That’s some serious shit, Braddock!

Not only that, but he could have gotten Ann and Senator Porter in a whole lot of trouble too. The President? Eh, he’s all the way over in Washington. He’s sleeping well. But Ann and Porter could be tried as enemies of Vietnam, as they would clearly have a role to play in bringing Braddock to the country.

Braddock hurries back to the hotel and returns to Ann’s balcony, where she lets him in as Vinh and the soldiers pour into the hallway. He undresses Ann and gets into bed with her to make it look like they had been making love when Tran was killed… Scratch that… That should read, “when Tran was murdered.”

Now, I suppose Chuck Norris, this script, Joseph Zito, and Cannon Films believe the Vietnamese to be stupid. Granted, I do accept that maybe Vinh doesn’t exactly have a lot of actual evidence, especially after Ann vouches for Braddock being with her all night. Still, it’s waaaaay more than just a coincidence that General Tran is dead the same day that Braddock arrived in the country. Still, the best Vinh can do is tell Braddock he’s to leave the country the next day or “not at all.”

Braddock flies to Bangkok to look up an old army friend. This army friend, “Tuck,” is played by the always great M. Emmet Walsh. Walsh was a staple of 70s and 80s films. Braddock asks around for where Tuck might be. Turns out, the bartender knows just where he is. He’s probably at the whorehouse down the road. Before he can get there, Braddock has to fight off an assassin who was sent to kill him, proving that Vinh is clearly attempting to get revenge on Braddock for what he clearly did to Tran.

Braddock arrives at the whorehouse and finds Tuck, who’s getting beaten up by some guy there. Before Braddock steps in to do Chuck Norris things to Tuck’s attacker, he negotiates the best price he can to rent his boat. But that’s not all… Braddock says that Tuck “owes” him, so he has to pilot the boat for Braddock to make his incursion back into Vietnam to find the M.I.A.s.

Meanwhile, we still have some folks following Braddock with hidden knives and such who are all likely hired to kill Braddock. Hell, they could have been hired by Senator Porter for the trouble Braddock got everyone into. It’s fair to not exactly trust the United States any further than Vietnam. Anyway, Tuck shows that he’s got a pretty big gun on his “apparently” dumpy little boat. He says it’s to deter pirates. Chuck Norris thinks it’s a pretty good gun for him to use himself. He’s got some other things on his list that will help him with his solo man mission.

The big thing he needs is a raft that can get into the delta where the camp is positioned. Tuck knows a guy. This guy has a Kevlar raft that is pretty indestructible. He also finds a guy who has a chopper that Braddock can hire. The only stipulation for the chopper is that the pilot is dependable. No other details are important to him.

Braddock avoids another series of attempts on his life. The first guy is a guy with a knife in his closet. Braddock deals with him by chucking (pun totally intended) him out of the window to his doom. Across the street, Vinh and another assassin, this time, one with a bazooka, are ready to try to blow him up. They try but miss. They hurt a bunch of people (including a small kid) on the street. Realizing he needs to hop to, he goes to the whorehouse to collect Tuck and get to the docks, where they can flee by way of boat.

At the docks, more guys with guns attempt more assassinations. While dodging machine gun fire, Braddock uses his bona fide Chuck Norris Plot Armor and a truck to fuck all sorts of shit up and ultimately get away on Tuck’s boat. Vinh decides that this has become a very personal matter that he wishes to take on for himself. He follows alone.

Vinh catches up to Tuck’s boat and, under the cover of the night, gets on board and attempts to sneak up on Braddock with an axe. Naturally, Braddock knew he was there. In fact, I’m guessing he knew he was there hours before Vinh actually got onto the boat.

Vinh tries axing Braddock, but Braddock fucking breaks the axe handle. They then exchange some fisticuffs. Eventually, Braddock overpowers Vinh. Before killing him, he tells Vinh he shouldn’t have hurt the innocent people in Bangkok. I do like that a high-ranking official in Vietnam’s government, and a general, is willing to actually get his own hands dirty and try to kill this American pig himself. That’s really going above and beyond.

With 35 minutes to go in the movie, both of the primary villains of Missing in Action are dead.

The next day, Braddock and Tuck arrive in Vietnam. I just mentioned that there were 35 minutes to go, and both villains are dead, right? Well, expect the next 35 minutes to simply be unknown and unnamed Vietnamese bad guys being the final boss of the movie. Sure enough, that is the situation.

It’s a lot of Chuck Norris sneaking up on guys, knocking them out, stabbing them, or breaking their necks, backs, and bones. To save Braddock from being snuck up on from behind, Tuck fires a gun, which gives up the ghost that there are intruders. There’s no going back now. There’s only one way forward – fight their way deeper into the delta and for Braddock to finish his self-imposed mission to find and free the M.I.A.s.

Braddock carefully traverses the jungle, where he finds it crawling with soldiers (who, I assume, believe the Vietnam War is still going on, and if they don’t, they are acting like it). He also finds the jungle loaded with booby traps that he has to be mindful of. He eventually gets to the prisoner camp. When he gets there, it’s a lot of sneaking around, snipping barbed wire, and setting explosives.

I can joke about the repetitiveness of this movie, especially in this portion of the movie. It’s a lot of sneaking around. Then doing something else. Then doing another thing. In fact, much of the 100-minute runtime is repetitive. Earlier, it was Chuck Norris looking sternly at a Vietnamese general, then exchanging some words, then moving to the next scene, where basically the same thing happens again. That said, the action scenes of this movie are the best parts of the movie. It’s no secret that Chuck Norris isn’t that good of an actor when it comes to the stuff when he needs to, you know, act? But when it comes to doing action, his movies do have a charming goofiness to them. This movie is played so straight and so seriously, but there’s such earnestness to it, it’s hard to fully come down too hard on it. Sure, there are logic issues, as I described earlier, but I can’t argue that the movie kind of comes to life when Chuck Norris is being the action guy.

This final act does something I actually kind of appreciate. It throws a wrench into Braddock’s plans. When he arrived earlier, it seemed as though he was seeing everything he expected to see. He saw a lot of troops and a lot of prisoners. When he storms the place and starts blowing stuff up to free the prisoners, he only finds Vietnamese prisoners of war. They moved the American prisoners a few hours ago, a little bit further inland. However, there’s a nice moment when the Vietnamese captives are in tears over being freed. Yeah, Braddock didn’t have any thought about possibly finding locals who would have been fighting against the Viet Cong, but he is not unhappy about freeing them.

Okay, it’s nice on the surface. Maybe there’s a little bit of “white saviorism” going on here, but I don’t care. It’s good to remember we had support from locals. Not all the Vietnamese were enemies.

But it looks like Braddock has to do it all over again. He returns to Tuck, and they move further down the delta to get to the American captives. The Americans are being moved by soldiers in trucks. Luckily, those trucks run along the tributaries that Braddock and Tuck are rafting down because they are there to open fire on Charlie and get their boys back.

It doesn’t hurt that the American captives also fight back too. They start to overpower their guards, grab their guns, and start providing some support to Braddock. The Vietnamese blow up the fancy Kevlar raft Braddock and Tuck had, and one of the funniest fucking things I’ve ever seen happens…

I mean it. This moment is so damn funny, I can’t believe it’s used as an example of great, goofy 80s action schlock more often.

After killing all those damn Vietnamese guys here, Braddock, Tuck, and the captives need to GTFO before more soldiers show up. They first take off in a Jeep. They then get as far as they can with that, and we’re back to square one with this movie, with Braddock leading guys away from attacking Vietnamese soldiers. There are soldiers on the riverbank. There are soldiers coming on a patrol boat. The odds are kind of stacked against them.

When Tuck’s mate is killed by the patrol boat, he returns to his boat to man the guns, knowing this is probably a suicide mission. But the chopper is arriving to pick up the captives and Braddock. As they climb aboard the chopper to lift off, Tuck is blown up on his boat by the Vietnamese patrol. So, like a true action man that he is, Braddock talks a friend into helping him, only for him to pay the ultimate price. Either way, the chopper ultimately blows up the patrol boat with a missile.

Braddock orders the chopper pilot to fly to “Saigon” (he ain’t gonna call this shithole no “Ho Chi Minh City,” daggummit). As the new leader of Vietnam reads a statement about how happy he is that this whole nasty M.I.A and P.O.W. thing has now come to rest. They categorically deny that they held any prisoners after the war. And that’s when Braddock comes barging in with his saved captives, and we get a freeze frame of a heroic Braddock and a prisoner who looks like he’s in the middle of thinking, “Holy shit, I think I was an accomplice to acts of war today.”

THE END.

Is Missing in Action good? Lord, no. Is it bad? Also, lord, no. Look, it’s a pretty dumb movie with a lot of repetition, as I mentioned earlier. That said, it is also a fairly fun movie. Correction… It’s a fairly fun movie for the time in which it was made.

Look, I’m a guy who did most of his growing up in the 80s. That was still in a time when having those little green army men figures was pretty common for most boys. Hell, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero was one of the biggest toy properties in the world. So, I was a little pre-programmed to think these types of action movies were normal, good entertainment. These types of movies were a dime a dozen too, because movies like Missing in Action and Rambo were popular. So, yeah, gimme a fuckin’ break here, guys.

While I can say this is largely harmless dumb entertainment (for people whose brains can operate above the level of a fifth grader), I do like looking at these movies from a more evolved and grown-up perspective. This movie really does not like Vietnamese people. They are largely treated as poor, maybe kind of dumb or simple, and straight up antagonistic. There’s a lot of seething anger over how Vietnam ended for the United States Military. I think it’s safe to say, 50 years later, we lost that war. We pulled out, and the people we were on the side of lost. A lot of people could not really handle that fact all that well for a long time. Some of it was due to how the country treated the soldiers when they came home, the assistance they received (or didn’t) when they clearly had a lot of really nasty PTSD over the things that they saw or did, and some of it is our own national ego, not really understanding how we could lose after a long history of being war winners.

From a mature perspective, studying the movie from what it is trying to say beneath the surface or between the lines, this is a very angry movie that seemingly focuses heavily on wanting to make people feel like we won in some way. It’s like reading comic books that sell the fantasy that Superman and Batman ended World War II a few days into the war by simply capturing Hitler and Mussolini and sending them to the Hague for trial. That’s fantasy that we could have that great big heroic moment and all that past pain can be put to rest because the right things were done and the bad guys paid for the bad shit they did.

While it is fantasy that this is how we soothed the open sores of some of the younger generation not coming home from a war they were drafted into, maybe it’s okay for people who still have that pain to see Chuck Norris saving the guy they knew was captured and was never heard from again.

All I can hope for is that they don’t still have a lot of animosity and hatred toward the Vietnamese people. That would be bad. That would also be unfair because some of those people were on our side.

Whatever. I think we can hop on the big chopper in the sky and take ourselves to our own freedom from Missing in Action. Next week, we go to Ancient Rome for an all-timer in terms of taboo flicks. It’s also the return of Mr. Tinto Brass. Yeah, it’s long past due, so I guess I’d better just say that next week, it’s time for Caligula.

See you next week, and check back later this year when I cover the follow-up to Missing in Action for a more in-depth tribute/eulogy/whatever you want to call it for Chuck Norris.