| Cobra Mission (1985) |
| aka. Operation Nam |
| Directed by Fabrizio DeAngelis . Starring Christopher Connelly, Oliver Tobias , Manfred Lehman, Ethan Wayne, and Donald Pleasence. |
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| This is a pretty entertaining First Blood / Missing in Action ripoff. It starts with three Vietnam vet. buddies who are having trouble adjusting to life in the states. It's Christopher Connelly's daughters wedding day, and instead of getting ready, he's sitting around playing his Atari 2600. I got a few laughs out of that one. His freinds aren't much better. His skinny, dirty looking freind ( who looks a lot like Greame Blundell, star of Alvin Purple, and Idiot Box) pawns his medals to buy a really bad second-hand suit to go to the wedding in (yet seemingly didn't get enough change to buy razors). His other buddy is even worse off. He is Ethan Wayne, son of 'The Duke' John Wayne. He must have copped a lot of flack for having an old man who made a heap of war movies, while never serving in World War 2 himself. |
| The wedding is a disaster. Connelly's wife tells him that his bum freinds aren't welcome, and they get kicked out of the reception. Connelly ditches it himself, and they go to a seedy bar. Somehow, everyone in the bar knows that they were in Nam, and start badmouthing them. Ethan Wayne, whos father was never one to walk away from a badly choreographed barroom brawl, knocks one guy out, and puts another through a window. Up till now, the whole movie had a First Blood, or Blastfighter feel to it. |
| The three have been seeing newsstories on P.O.W's still missing in action, so they go to see their old colonel, played by Enzo Castellari ( director of Inglorious Bastards, and The New Barbarians). He convinces them to go back behind enemy lines and liberate any Americans they can find. This is a recipe for a series of action scenes with plenty of pyrotechnics, and a lot of confusion. |
| This is a pretty entertaining beer and pizza movie. It's pretty well packed with action, and is very funny at times. It also has cameos by Donald Pleasence ( Halloween, Escape From New York ) , and Thomas Moore ( Killer Crocodile, Bronx Warriors 2). It can be pretty confusing at times with plot holes big enough to drop napalm through, but it never gets in the way of the ludicrous action. It's also pretty unpredictable, in particular a scene between Ethan Wayne , and a young village girl that starts romantically, and then takes a violent twist. Cobra Mission won't provoke thought, but it's a pretty good choice if you're either too tired, or too drunk to concentrate much. |
| Entertainment : 2 out of 4 |
| Watchability : 3 out of 4 |
| Overall : 2.5 out of 4 |
| Reviewed by Blake. |
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| IMPORTANT UPDATE: The guy I thought was John Waynes son is in fact just a supreme John Wayne lookalike. Don't be too hard on me though,because the back of the video box was wrong too ! I found this out from "Aylmer's Grisly, Grimy Page " ( see links ). I can't be bothered re-writing the whole thing, so this disclaimer will have to do. |