The Forgotten

There's usually something a bit distasteful about movies which exploit the notion that American POWs were (and perhaps still are) being held in Vietnam after the end of American involvement there. This movie is no exception though it has a good cast and its earnest quality tends to soften the edges of its questionable material.

And like most POW movies, this one feels compelled to include some torture scenes. In fact, there's a whole smorgasbord of them. We see Keith Carradine, stripped to the waist, tied in a chair where he's threatened with a gun and slapped around by an Vietnamese interrogator. Then we see Michael Champion's head pushed backward over a tub of water while a flowing water-hose is forced into his mouth. Next Richard Lawson gets bamboo shoved under his fingernails followed by Steven Railsback being whipped across his bare torso while hanging upside-down. It's as if the Vietnamese had a separate torture for each POW!(Apparently they forgot about the sack containing a hungry rat which was tied over Chuck Norris' head in "Missing in Action" or the electric generator whose wires were attached to David Anthony Smith's nipples in "The Hanoi Hilton." Watching Smith writhe in agony with each turn of the generator's crank while his tormentors giggled in delight is perhaps the ultimate in these scenes.)

Most of the actors give a better effort than the script deserves but top honors go to William Lucking.

But the movie is still quite enjoyable. Some soldiers from Vietnam have just been released from being POWs, now they are back and safe, or are they? They are all questioned and interrogated about a secret mission which they are suspected of being involved in, it's a bit obvious what the mission was going to have involved but it kept me watching for the details. The acting was substantial, except for the German wife of one of the soldiers who had a bad accent saying 'z' instead of 'th' "Zey will kill zem".

All in all it's okay as a tv movie but not up to theatrical standards they isn't a whole lot there it all runs along fine but it just could have done with more meat to it. Also the ending just makes me feel that they had run out of money(or ideas) and just had to end the film.