Uncommon Valor

Plot synopsis:
Taking place in the early 1980s and set in the context of the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue, retired Marine Colonel Jason Rhodes (Gene Hackman) is obsessed with finding his son Frank, listed as "missing in action" (MIA) since 1972. After 10 years of searching Southeast Asia and turning up several leads, Rhodes believes that Frank is still alive and being kept in Laos as a prisoner of war.
After petitioning the United States government for help, but receiving none, Colonel Rhodes brings together a disparate group of Vietnam War veterans, including some who were a part of Frank's platoon: Wilkes (Fred Ward), a "tunnel rat" who suffers from PTSD; "Blaster", a demolitions expert (Reb Brown); and "Sailor", a mental case with a heart of gold (Randall Cobb). Additionally, two helicopter pilots, Distinguished Flying Cross recipient Johnson (Harold Sylvester) and Charts (Tim Thomerson), join the group. Former Force-Recon Marine Kevin Scott (Patrick Swayze) joins the team and later turns out to be the son of a pilot who was blown up with a grenade in Vietnam and listed as MIA.
With the financial backing of rich oil businessman McGregor (Robert Stack), whose son served in Frank's platoon and is also listed among the missing, the men train near Galveston, Texas, before embarking on their trip to the Laos camp in an attempt to bring back the POWs. However, the CIA, fearing an international crisis from Rhodes' actions, intercepts him in Bangkok and confiscates his weapons and equipment. Still determined to rescue their comrades, the team members put together their expense money given to them by McGregor, and Rhodes contacts an acquaintance of his, deposed local drug baron Jiang (Kwan Hi Lim), who joins the expedition with his two daughters Lai Fun and Mai Lin and manages to supply them with outdated but capable World War II weapons. In the course of the expedition, Charts gradually forms a relationship with Lai Fun.
Near the Laotian border, the group is attacked by a border patrol and Mai Lin is killed. Later, the group divides: Rhodes leads Charts, Sailor, Johnson, and Lai Fun to a helicopter compound to secure escape transportation, while the rest of the team scouts out the prison camp. They find four Americans among the prisoners, but are unable to ascertain Frank's presence among them.
The teams spend the night with preparations, and the next morning they commence the attack. In a heated battle, they manage to spring the prisoners, among them McGregor's son, but Frank is not among them, and Blaster, Sailor, and Jiang are killed in the process. From McGregor, Rhodes has to learn that his son became ill soon after his capture and died, despite McGregor's best efforts. The returners are joyously welcomed by their families, and Rhodes finds that in learning the fate of his son, he has gained some closure for his wife and himself.

Tags: comedy, murder, anti war, cult, violence, insanity, tragedy

Review:
Gene Hackman is always a pleasure to watch, and he lifts this implausible POW-rescue escapade with a mature and convincing portrayal of a father strugglingto come to terms with the fact that his son was listed missing-in-action during the Vietnam War. The whole cast is quite impressive actually, consisting of old pros (Hackman and Robert Stack), future stars (Patrick Swayze, Fred Ward) and familiar bit players (Tim Thomerson, Harold Sylvester, Randall Tex Cobb, Reb Brown).
Ted Kotcheff directed this exciting adventure film that stars Gene Hackman as Marine Col. Jason Rhodes, who has become frustrated with his own(U.S.) governments refusal to launch a rescue mission into Vietnam to rescue P.O.W.s he believes are still there, including his own son.
He is approached by a rich businessman named McGregor(played by Robert Stack) who agrees to finance his own rescue mission which he wants Rhodes to command, since he too has a son who is a P.O.W. Rhodes then recruits some marines(now civilians) to help him on the mission(played by Patrick Swayze, Tim Thomerson, Randal 'Tex' Cobb, Fred Ward, & Reb Brown) First they must train and prepare, then launch the rescue mission, which is quite dangerous for many reasons...
Uncommon Valor (1983) is a underrated Vietnam war flick that I have grown up with it, it is one of the best classic Vietnam films from Patrick Swayze, alongside with Gene Hackman!
This movie is about a U.S. Marine officer who puts together a team of Vietnam vets who served in Vietnam and he try's to rescue his son, who he believes is among those still held in Laos after the Vietnam War. Directed by Ted Kotcheff who previously directed First Blood (1982).
I really had a blast and fun watching him in this movie, playing a Marine Kevin Scott."Boy, you just bought the whole can of whup-ass!" "Boy, you usin' that oriental martial bulls**t on me's gonna get real expensive." Plot: Ten years after his son went MIA in Vietnam, U.S.Marine retired Colonel Jason Rhodes assembles a private rescue team to find Americans held in POW camps in Laos.What I love about this movie is: you have a solid excellent cast: Gene Hackman, Patrick Swayze, Fred Ward, Reb Brown, Randall "Tex" Cobb, Harold Sylvester, Tim Thomerson and Robert Stack.
Its a great movie, good script, well directed action and nicely rounded characters that live with you well after the movie is over.I really love Patrick Swayze, who was US marine in this movie and he was kicked out of the unit for striking a radio operator who fall a sleep.
I love Fred Ward as Wilkes, he was a Tunnel rat, he doesn't like close spaces, after the fight with Kevin and Sailor we found Kevin's story, why he want's to be In this mission, it is because his father was shot down in Vietnam and he is missing in action.
Uncommon Valor is a 1983 war film written by Joe Gayton and directed by Ted Kotcheff, about a U.S. Marine officer who puts together a team to try to rescue his son, who he believes is among those still held in Laos after the Vietnam War.10/10 Score: Bad Ass Seal Of Approval Studio: Paramount Pictures Starring: Gene Hackman, Patrick Swayze, Fred Ward, Reb Brown, Randall "Tex" Cobb, Harold Sylvester, Tim Thomerson, Robert Stack, Kwan Hi Lim, Lau Nga Lai Director: Ted Kotcheff Producers: David Brown, Michael Tolkin, Nick Wechsler, Buzz Feitshans, John Milius Screenplay: Joe Gayton Story by Wings Hauser Rated: R Running Time: 1 Hr. 45 Mins.
Exciting and stirring film in which a brave unit returns Vietnam to rescue POWs. Box-office hit of the 80s about a misfit team re-reunited by Gene Hackman to carry out a suicide mission behind enemy lines .
Hackman's mission is two-fold and in violent style : first turn his soldiers into a hard fighting unit and later on they go to invade Laos in search of prisoners , still Missing in Action .
The unit formed by diverse characters include a cocky hunk as Reb Brown , Harold Sylvester as a chronic malcontent , Randal Tex Cobb as a ready-to-blow nutty , Fred Ward as a lame-brained soldier , Tim Thomerson as old veteran and a beginner Patrick Swayze .
At the end they must participate in the suicidal mission behind the enemy lines , to wipe enemies and rescue prisoners by means of a violent assault over a strongly protected camp.Gene Hackman as Colonel Rhodes who gathers a motley crew assumes the character of the leader in this thrilling war movie stunningly directed by Ted Kotcheff , being well scripted by Joe Gayton and uncredited by also actor Wing Hauser.
This is a routine Actioner with prestigious star Gene Hackman as the Vietnam veteran resulting to be one of the best roles he'd made in the 80s , as he's fine as tough , cold , obstinate Colonel .
Rough Hackman is good as leader of the motley pack together to thwart enemy camp , as well as the largely secondary cast with special mention to Randall Tex Cobb and Patrick Swayze .
Sure the premise proved popular enough to inspire several later films like COBRA MISSION, MISSING IN ACTION, and RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART 2 (Director Kotcheff directed FIRST BLOOD)...
On the plus side, Uncommon Valor also features a wealth of your favorite B-actors, like Fred Ward (Tremors 1 and 2), Randall Cobb (Golden Child), Patrick Swayze (Steel Dawn), and the aforementioned Reb Brown (Robowar, Strike Commando, Yor, etc.).Any film with Reb Brown happily chanting "bouncin' betty blows their balls off!" can't be that bad...
Gene Hackman plays Colonel Rhodes, a frustrated veteran who rounds up a gang of the roughest men he can find, all to lead an invasion of a Vietnamese Prisoner of War camp at which he believes his son is still held captive.
Seemingly far-fetched plot isn't as overblown as one might think, while the cast gives great, solid, and most of all believable performances, including Patrick Swayze, Fred Ward, and Randall "Tex" Cobb.
On the surface this is basically an action adventure movie featuring a load of Americans with guns , but it gets off to a very powerful start as a former Korean war hero finds that his son who has been captured by Vietnamese forces in 1972 hasn`t been returned home .
It`s also extremely dumb in places where Hackman`s character manages to get some acid head biker out of prison just like that or where characters survive spectacular copter crashes I gave UNCOMMON VALOR five out of ten and if it wasn`t for the moving opening ten minutes it would probably have got a lot less.
Always enjoy Gene Hackman,(Col. Cal Rhodes), who portrayed a retired Marine Col., who was bound and determined to find his son and rescue other Vietnam captives for over ten long years missing in action.
But if you can tolerate, ignore or (to be fair) enjoy this aspect of the film, you will find a very moving look at people dealing with the idea of their friends and family never coming home and/or being forced to live as Prisoners of War. This is the main thing which separates this from other POW rescue fantasies (along with a certain, though modest, degree of realism).
Uncommon Valor stars Gene Hackman as a retired US Army Colonel who still wants an accounting of his son who was listed as Missing In Action when the Vietnam War ended in 1973.
Hackman thinks he has a lead and he goes to multi-millionaire Robert Stack who also has an MIA son with a plan of action that involves leading some veterans as a volunteer mercenary force to get their comrades out.I'll say the same thing I said about Rambo II which touched on the same subject.
At least Gene Hackman was not going to do it singlehanded the way Sly Stallone did.Bearing all that in mind, Uncommon Valor is a nice action war film if taken on its own terms.
The story template is familiar but the central theme of hunting for MIA soldiers in Vietnam is good enough to have inspired later, more popular action films like the Chuck Norris MISSING IN ACTION vehicles and the Stallone-starring RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II.Uncommon Valor is both similar to and different from those populist movies.
Then there's the larger-than-life Randall 'Tex' Cobb making an impression, Tim Thomerson prior to his B-movie career with Charles Band and, last but best of all, an extremely young Patrick Swayze giving a subtle and nuanced turn as the rookie of the group.
Other than a little rough editing/directing this movie is my all-time favorite.......the only movie I ever choked up on and the only one I've ever owned.......I think Gene Hackman is great, but Reb Brown and Randall "Tex" Cobb really stood out in this movie for me.
'Uncommon Valor' has a great premise about an American father (Gene Hackman) trying to rescue his son from a Vietnamese POW camp ten years after he was taken prisoner.
Hackman is excellent as a rough-tough Marine colonel who leads a gung-ho band of vets through the Laos jungles to rescue American troops listed as missing in action during the Vietnam War. High on macho and action, this is a well done film from director Kotcheff, who has a great handle on the technical in this picture, compared to First Blood.
In this action-adventure set after the Vietnam war, retired Army colonel Rhodes still believes that his son, who disappeared in Laos a decade before, is still being held as a POW.
After intensive training, they return to the jungles to find the missing son.Gene Hackman is great and so are his "motley crew,"a private rescue team to find Americans held in P.O.W. camps in Laos.
Retired Marine Colonel Jason Rhodes' son Frank is listed Missing in Action in Vietnam.About ten years later he gathers up a team to get him, and a few others, back.Uncommon Valor (1983) is directed by Ted Kotcheff.He's the same guy who directed the first Rambo movie.There's certainly some relation between Rambo and this movie.Gene Hackman is pretty tough guy to play the lead.He may not have the muscles of Sly, but he's still pretty tough.Patrick Swayze, who is sadly no longer with us, plays Kevin Scott.Fred Ward plays the part of Wilkes.Red Brown is Blaster.Former boxer Randall 'Tex' Cobb plays Sailor.Robert Stack portrays MacGregor.Tim Thomerson is Charts.Harold Sylvester plays Johnson.This movie, despite being a classic masterpiece, isn't lacking in cool action scenes.I mean, when they hit the location of the missing soldiers, all hell breaks loose.If you dig these manly action flicks, then this is your movie..
While not the greatest film on the subject, Uncommon Valor is a marginally effective war film and is a story on friendship, courage, and what it takes to see the ones they love again.Ted Kotcheff, who you many recognize as the director of First Blood, directs a film about a retired colonel who spent ten years trying to find his son, who is listed as missing in action.
My favorite character was played by Randall "Tex" Cobb and his character was so dumb and silly, but always made an effort to get the job done.Overall, Uncommon Valor is a decent war movie led on by the values of family and friendship.
The 80's had "American POW's are still being held in SouthEast Asia and the U.S. needs to go and rescue em" This film had some good potential especially with Gene Hackman but ended up just being the standard action fair not far off ala Chuck Norris.
Colonel Jason Rhodes (Gene Hackman) is one of many worried Americans who've received notice that a loved one of theirs is listed as still Missing in Action after the Vietnam War. In Jasons' case, it's his brave son Frank (Todd Allen), who wouldn't leave a wounded comrade behind.
The great Gene Hackman plays Colonel Rhodes, a father haunted by his son's disappearance behind enemy lines during the Vietnam War. For years he tries, and fails, to convince the US government to help him find Frank.
In a last-ditch attempt, he recruits several of Frank's comrades-in-arms, who each, in his own way, has unfinished business with the war, to join him on a daring rescue mission.What follows is a by-the-numbers but stirring action film, with an extremely likeable cast including Fred Ward, Tim Thomerson, and a young Patrick Swayze.
'Uncommon Valor' Directed By Ted Kotcheff who also directed 'First Blood' the film has Hackman cast as a Colonel veteran (Korea) who teams a group of Vietnam War veterans to re-unite to rescue some of their own who were previously left behind and taken prisoner by the Vietnamese.Hackman is driven by the mission as his son is a POW, Robert Stack whose son is also a POW plays the Oil magnate who finances the daring mission.
It's actually one of the better Vietnam films out there, simply because it combines both and drama evenly without an over-reliance on either aspect.Colonel Rhodes (Gene Hackman, A BRIDGE TOO FAR) recruits a band of Vietnam veterans to head back to Vietnam and rescue POWs. The team includes memory-plagued Wilkes (Fred Ward), young hotshot Blaster (Reb Brown, STRIKE COMMANDO), rough-'n-tumble Sailor (Randal "Tex" Cobb, THE DIRTY DOZEN: DEADLY MISSION), decent guy Johnson (Harold Sylvester), and aging Charts (Tim Thomerson, ZONE TROOPERS).
Gene Hackman is a former Marine Corps colonel who musters a handful of private Vietnam vets to go back to Laos and rescue some Americans who have been listed as missing in action.
So they have to find other weapons......Hilarious from beginning to end, for all the wrong reasons, Uncommon Valor beat Rambo 2 by nearly two years for being one of the most overblown pieces of propaganda bigging up the vets in the eighties.The first act and a half are pure filler, Hackman getting angry, sad, and other emotions, before recruiting his rag tag team of people with wonderful names.But the real reason to watch this is because the moment we see the most fake looking bones ever committed to celluloid,the film goes bonkers, and it's really worth seeing for the last half an hour.It might have been myself, but it appears that Hackman spouts only one line from this part of the film, Swayze gets really, I mean really, emotional when he kills someone, or sees someone die, the camera literally stays on him for the best part of ten seconds each time to show his sadness.But when Tim Thomerson survives a helicopter explosion, he loses it, runs really fast to the river, and stops.Randall 'Tex' Cobb is the comedy value here, and when he realises it, he uses his necklace to help his friends.No prizes for guessing how a character called Blaster buys it, and all the POW's look like Klaus Kinski.It's not a bad film by any means, it's just daft propaganda, telling the USA that it was okay that we didn't win, because Gene Hackman can still get out there and kick butt..
Viet Nam was filled with horrors for the men who lived it day in and day out.This film stars Gene Hackman who is Korean war vet assigned to train a group of rag-tag Viet Nam Vets for a return trip to that country to rescue a group of American POW's held at a camp there.
It does so with an honorable storyline, good characterizations and pretty good acting given the subject matter.Gene Hackman plays a former Army Colonel whose son is among those who served in Vietnam and is now missing in action.
Tex Cobb, Fred Ward, Reb Brown, Harold Sylvester, Tim Thomerson and Patrick Swayze each provide entertaining and believable characters representing the men who will spearhead this rescue.
Because of this, Uncommon Valor shines above the many comic-book movies of this genre which offer little more than a high body count.Gene Hackman, an excellent actor if there ever was one, does a nice job conveying the nobility of the mission- and ultimate heartbreak when we learn the fate of his son.
Tex Cobb- a guy not known for his acting chops- has a memorable, touching scene when rescuing a young man reluctant to leave the garden he's tended for years ("We'll take the garden with us").While the notion of unaccounted for POW's was never proved with any degree of certainty, Uncommon Valor is an entertaining movie and a respectful nod to those who had loved ones serve in 'Nam and not come home..
Uncommon Valor is a decent - you might even say good - war movie that in fact was one of the first films that portraits the pain and depression after Vietnam.
Rhodes ( Gene Hackman is a great role as always ) feels that his son is still alive and can't go on living with the thought that he's kept prisoner.
Uncommon Valor doesn't belong to the top list of Vietnam war movies but it certainly is enjoyable and worth a watch.
Kotcheff tackles his subject well, and while the movie is never incredibly moving, it is very effective."Uncommon Valour" was one of the first in what turned out to be a spate of 'Vietnam War films', some better and some worse than this one.
I will give the film its due it does exactly that, you get exactly what you'd expect, it doesn't try to sugarcoat anything or be overally flashy, its clichéd and corny at the best of times but its a real crowd pleaser if you ask me.Gene Hackman's son is MIA in a remote area of Laos ten years after the Nam war, he believes he's still alive and wants to rescue him but the government aren't interested.
Under Hackman we have Tim Thomerson playing another Nam vet chopper pilot (before 'Air America'), Fred Ward in his year of recognition with two other major film releases, Harold Sylvester as the typical 80's token black character, Captain America himself Reb Brown, Randall 'Tex' Cobb surprisingly trying to act being a good guy and a very young Pat Swayze.