Diplomatic Immunity

(1991) Diplomatic Immunity ACTION/ ADVENTURE

Straight-to-rental and adapted from the novel "The Stalker" written by Theodore Taylor starring Bruce Boxleitner as Army Sargent Cole Hickel seeking retribution after finding out that his young teenage daughter had been killed by the son of a Paraguay Consulate and have some diplomatic immunity citizenship where they were residing which is in LA California. Cole then decides to sneak in to Paraguay after some gov't bureaucracy wouldn't do anything about it, even though he's been blacklisted from even entering there. Robert Forster and frequent bad guy Billy Drago also stars in a rare good guy role as an arms dealer, Cowboy.

My review was written in March 1991 after watching the movie at a Times Square screening room.

"Diplomatic Immunity" is a superior B actioner. Its crowd-pleasing, ingenious trick ending will ratify urban audiences in theatrical play this spring while video sales loom strong.

In his best feature since the minor classic "Viper" (starring Linda Purl), made three years earlier, filmmaker Peter Maris is blessed with a clever script and topnotch cast.

Bruce Boxleitner, fitting a mature role comfortably, toplines as a Marine training sergeant what goes over the top when his beautiful young daughter (Sharon L. Kane) is rap;ed and mudered b her foreign boyfriend (Tom Bresnahan). Pic's title comes into play early when Bresnahan and his evil henchman Christophe Neame are returned to their home turf, Paraguay, since both hold diplomatic passports.

His old Vietnam War teammate Robert Forster, now a CIA bigwig controlling Latin American operations, tells Boxleitner to cool it, but the gung-ho leatherneck takes matters in his own hands and heads to Paraguay. His contact there is cynical Billy Drago, offering him arms and information.

The picture gains momentum when Boxleitner teams up with Bresnahan's dominatrix mistress, Fabiana Udenio, and later Drago to mount an assault on the villain's island fortress. Good stunt work and frequent action scenes are a plus.

Supporting Boxleitner in solid turns are Drago, who invests a stock role with terrific "juice", Bresnahan, the all-American boy who starred recently in "Ski School" but is perfect here as a sadistic villain. Udenio, a statuesque beauty who confirms the good impression she made in "Bride of Re-Animator"; and Meg Foster, delightfully heinous as Bresnahan' incestuous mother. Most of the cast gets tgo ham it up in final reel death scenes.

The tiger in the tail at film's fadeout (two delicious twists) is the kind of clever scripting that would benefit a high-priced recent superstar actioner.

Bruce Boxleitner, remember him. He was a cool action hero in this 80's show called Bring Em' Back Alive. Well, he's another kind of hero here, in a not too bad action yarn, as a revenge seeking marine, out to take down a young sicko photographer boyfriend, of his beautiful daughter, responsible for her accidental murder. Boxleitner pretty much took a disliking to him, straight off the bat. Now seething, as the killer is granted diplomatic immunity, Boxleitner, must become someone else and enter Paraquay, where he bumps heads with an old work rival (Robert Forster) and why am I not surprised to see him in this, while also making him out for a bad guy. Intuition. Now with a fake id, and needing hard armour, who should be selling it, good guy Drago, who teams up to take down twisted loverboy, and twisted family. Not a bad action fare, a little patchy, and there is better out there, but give this one a view, with a different cast hero, who carries the film, so cool and deadly. Creepy smiling Drago is a another asset. Meg Foster as loverboy's twisted stepmother, is also a curiosity.

Man oh man, you folks aren't seeing the big picture (too focused on something else, it seems.) I was surprised to see this as a 1991 film, I could have sworn it was a 1980s movie. I mean, if you are a genre fan it has all the strong points. The revenge plot, the state department/CIA weasels who impede the hero because of "the man" selling the US people out over politics, the guitar rock soundtrack, the big hair on some of the characters, the weird art thing with the villain, I mean it goes on and on.. a local TV station used to show this a lot, could have sworn it was an 80s movie.. anyway Bruce Boxleitner plays a US Marine Corps Sergeant who is denied justice because a freaky crook is a diplomat and son of a political family in the apparently important foreign country of Paraguay, and of course Bruce isn't having that, so he gets out his .45 and goes chasing a Lear Jet on a runway in his Marine Corps jeep. When "the man" won't let him continue his pursuit to Paraguay he just goes anyway, where he meets BILLY F'N DRAGO! Yes, the man is back, and he actually plays a good guy in this one. Offered an arsenal, our man Bruce insists on only taking a .45 pistol and a knife, and proceeds to use them to good effect.

This is easy to accept because the political family and their hired bodyguards are obviously sleazy. Of course one can argue that local uniformed military and police are "just doing their job" no matter who is in power, but you still have to cheer when Bruce whacks them by the boatload anyway.

And yes, there is Ms. Udenio, who has been a staple of all manner of films (incuding Austin Powers among many) and who apparently is featured to greater extent in the video release than the TV version I have seen. Oh well. The point is, if you like action flicks, especially 1980s style ones, this one hits all the buttons, has suitably freaky villains, kicka$$ heroes, characters going from bad to good, from good to bad, from bad to worse, and some great plot twists. If you are up late some night and see this one about to come on, you could do a lot worse than sit back and have a cheer as Bruce busts loose and does all the stuff they wouldn't let him do on Scarecrow and Mrs. King to kill waves of foreign bad guys. If that isn't enough then Drago's line delivery and Udenio's presence should help. Not to mention the guitar rock soundtrack and the scenery that stands in for Paraguay. (Where did they shoot this one? I'll have to check this page. Wherever it was, it serves the purpose pretty well.) Not as big budget as a some actioners of the time, but much better acted than most.

This movie is nothing special. Although it has it's moments (e.g. Billy Drago as a good guy, LOL, have we ever seen that before??), it loses out to lots of other similar movies which are better. The plot is pretty standard. Bad guy commits heinous crime, flees to another country where he thinks he's safe, our hero follows him to settle things straight. A plot like that always has potential, but this movie wasn't able to deliver to my standards. The action scenes weren't that good, and most of time the movie is boring. Even Matthias Hues wasn't able to add anything here. It could have been worse, though, it's not terrible either. 4 out of 10