Chuck Norris regarded this film as a breakthrough for him because it really confirmed him as an action star and proved Breaker! Breaker! wasn't a fluke. I think it was his idea too - and it feels "Norris" if you know what I mean: he plays a special services soldier who is sent on a mission in the dying days of the Vietnam War which ends in disaster (like the Son Tay Raid)... years later he is prompted to re-investigate by journalist Anne Archer.
The pacing of this is a little odd. It takes Norris until the last half hour until he starts kicking arse - the first hour he's mostly investigating and navigating.
Norris was smart in his collaborators. He got the experienced Ted Post to direct (presumably Norris would have liked the fact Post did a couple of Clint Eastwood films). The supporting cast is strong - Anne Archer is achingly lovely as his love interest (and they have sex too! Norris would zip on up later in his career), and has a decent role to play. There's also James Francisscus, Jim Backus and Dana Andrews, so the film would have some legitimacy.
The story has a strong background - special ops team, dying days Vietnam War, betrayal by the government... I mean that's all good stuff. Possibly unhealthy politically (Hitler used that argument to come to power ie that Germany lost WW1 because the troops had been betrayed). But it's rich dramatically. And it reminded me that at one stage Chuck Norris wasn't a joke - he made films that spoke to issues that a lot of people cared about. That sounds pretentious but films like this and later Missing in Action and Invasion USA - they struck a chord.
There's a great moment where Norris karate kicks into the drivers window of an incoming car. I wish he'd done more like this in his career. Or even in this film which lacks action. In particular it lacks people for Norris to kill - at the end when he takes out Franciscus it's by driving him off a cliff, and you kind of want something more.
There are curiously cheap credits.
Still, an interesting film.
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