Helden USA

Cardinal Richelieu said: "War is one of the scourges with which it has pleased God to afflict men."

The scourge who afflicts men in this wheeze is Gunnery Sgt. Burns (Fred Dryer). Burns is a career soldier, battle hardened and grizzled. He has his own interpretation of American foreign military policy, all foreigners are suspect by default and therefore subject to his military policy.

Armed only with this simple misunderstanding (and highly powered automatic weaponry), Burns' ire is aroused when his superior and friend, Col. Halloran (Brian Keith) is bushwacked and spirited away by babbling, machine gun toting "types". Burns' initial bafflement with his superiors reluctance to blame and incacerate every non-American in a hundred mile radius soon gives way to righteous indignation.

Bullets are soon being chambered, grenades are attached to bandoliers and rocket launchers hefted. Before you can say "United Nations peacekeeping envoy" Gunnery Sgt. Burns is (with the help of a few other people who don't stand on ceremony when there are asses to be kicked) laying siege to the desert fortress of a large man who looks like the product of an unholy union between Chewbacca and Dave Lee Travis (sorry, not funny if your not from the UK). After the smoke clears (and we have learnt that any combatant who has received a knife to the chest still has to be punched in the face really hard and fall from a terrace to ensure neutralisation), everyone who deserved to be (except the writers) is riddled with bullets, blown up and in one case has had a jeep dropped on them.

Possibly you may think I don't care much for this film, based on the above, but you'd be wrong. This is a slightly above average actioner, decently edited action scenes and pushes all the politically wrong buttons to get any red blooded blockhead like me baying for blood.

Its a shame Fred Dryer couldn't bring the same understated, laconic charm to this effort that he did to seven years of the excellent cop show Hunter, but he does make a pretty good action hero. Not a bad action pot boiler and I didn't even know it was Islamophobic until I looked it up on wiki.

About the kindest think I could possibly say about this movie, is that it is funnier than 'Commando.' Starring Fred 'Where the hell did my career go' Dryer as a Marine who lives by his own rules.(clever huh?) After the killing of all his buddies, and the kidnapping of his gruff but loveable Colonel, Yep... you guessed it, he goes on a one man rescue mission (against orders naturally) to rescue the Colonel, and to kill as many non-english speaking persons as possible. Laughably cliched from start to finish. Whoever wrote this should have their crayons taken away.

I decided to dust this one off and give it another watch. I don't know if that was a good thing. DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR is the quintessential one-sided, "We're good, they're bad" action film. Not since John Wayne's THE GREEN BERETS (1968) have I seen a film so amazingly biased.

The scariest thing about DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR is the film's politics. The film is so glaringly jingoistic that it landed itself on the "Worst List" of the book "Reed Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People." While set in the fictional country of Jemal, it is quite obvious who these guys fighting Israel are supposed to be. And who the good guys are. While discussing the complex problems in the Middle East, Ellie asks Burns, "Are you the kind of person who knows what is exactly right and what is wrong?" "Yes," replies Burns before he tells her "don't get us mad." DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR is the kind of film where multiple bad guys can't hit the hero (granted his underlings do die for the cause) with machine guns, but he can blow them up with a rocket launcher while driving a car. Where a "by the book" bureaucrat finds out the hard way (via car bomb) how "savage" these people really are. I think The Phantom of the Movies summed it up best in his review when he said, "it may well be the best 1943 war movie made in 1987." It would be funny, if it weren't so darn frightening.

Actually, there is a bit of fun to be had with DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR. Director Leonard, a veteran stuntman, crafts some nice car chases with a rather nice car stunt at the film's end. The film definitely holds its own against its contemporaries such as THE DELTA FORCE (1986) in that regard. Dryer, with visions of Eastwood in HEARTBREAK RIDGE (1986) dancing in his head, is amazingly bland as the tough as nails Marine. Watching him drag around here, it is hard to believe he carried a TV series for so many seasons. You can tell he was hoping for a cross over opportunity into theatrical features, but failed miserably. But there is something inherently funny in his featureless performance. Finally, fans of "what in the world" moments should also keep an eye out for the scene where Brian Keith, being photographed by terrorists, gives them the finger…with his ring finger!

"Death Before Dishonor" is a cheesy, nasty, jingoistic piece of work, and pretty fun on that level. In any event, it does exactly what it should be doing, and that's delivering lots of gunfire, explosions, and brutality before revving up for a nicely rousing finale. The villains are utter creeps whose demise we eagerly anticipate, and our hero is a jut jawed type who everybody knows damn well will take on all comers in order to do what's right.

It's also the sole feature film vehicle for TV star Fred Dryer ('Hunter'), who plays Marine sergeant "Gunny" Burns, who's stationed in the Middle East. When terrorists manage to kidnap his superior, Colonel Halloran (a lovably crusty Brian Keith), he goes into action. Luscious Polish babe Joanna Pacula plays a dubious journalist covering the terrorists' activities, Paul Winfield (rather wasted) is an officious, typical bureaucrat (the kind of guy in this type of film who will insist that the hero do things by the book), Sasha Mitchell is one of Burns's young soldiers, and Rockne Tarkington, Mohammed Bakri, and Kasey Walker play our unsubtle villains.

This marked the only 1st unit directing credit for veteran stuntman and stunt coordinator Terry Leonard, who's worked on films ranging from "McLintock!" to "The Green Hornet". You know it's comfortably familiar stuff, when, even if you're watching it for the first time, you can easily predict upcoming lines of dialogue. The on location shooting is a bonus, as is the excellent music by the under-rated Aussie composer Brian May. The action is first rate, and keeps us happily watching for the duration. And just to show us how sadistic the baddies are, the most memorable scene has them mutilating Keiths' hand with a power drill and threatening his young associate with similar treatment. That makes it all the more glorious when Dryer and associates, with the assistance of the Mossad, launch the climactic attack on the stronghold where Keith is being kept. It's guaranteed to get you cheering and pumping your fist, right up to the final frame.

Seven out of 10.

This was typical of the one-sided, unintentionally funny, and jingoistic action movies that came out during the Reagan Administration, and as such, clearly shows its age.

See Edward Zwick's "The Siege" instead.