Sometime in the 1980's, and I can't remember what brought it on, there was an onslaught of Vietnam MIA movies.  You had Chuck Norris in the aptly named "Mission in Action" series, and how could you forget Rambo: First Blood Part II (no matter how hard you try!)...

...and then there was 1983's Uncommon Valor.  Quite frankly this is the movie that "Rambo" should have been.  It'd been a long time since I'd seen Uncommon Valor, and for some reason I remember it being a worse picture.  Maybe age and experience has changed my perspective, I really don't know.  But this is really not a bad movie.  I won't go as far to say it's great... but its really quite good.

Col. Cal Rhodes' (Gene Hackman) son went missing somewhere in Vietnam in '72.  Since that time he's made it his mission to find him.  Eventually he thinks he's located the camp in Laos where Frank may be held.  With this knowledge, and with no support from any official channels, he decides to take matters into his own hands, and secures financing for a rescue mission.

To do this, he enlists a bunch of guys from Frank's old unit, Wilkes (Fred Ward), Blaster (Reb Brown), Sailor (Randall Cobb), a couple of helicopter pilots, Johnson (Harold Sylvester) and Charts (Tim Thomerson), and the son of an MIA, Kevin Scott (Patrick Swayze).  He has to convince most of them to come along, which really brings up a lot of contemporary attitudes and feelings about Vietnam. 

Then comes the training.  He ships them all off to someplace in Texas (and just for those who don't know, the only thing north of Galveston is Houston!...) for a crash course in prison camp raiding.  In this "act 2" we see these guys deal with some of their demons, and finally come around to Scott's presence.

Then in "act 3" they head off to Bangkok to start their mission.  Unfortunately they're waylaid by the CIA (who else!) and have to improvise their way into some new weapons.  They split off into their respective teams and (yes I'll spoil this one) get the job done, bringing home four American MIA's in the process.  One of which was the soldier Frank saved, which caused him to be left behind.  Unfortunately, Frank isn't one of them (yes I'll spoil that, too.)  And (OK, I'll spoil this for you, hey why stop now!) they lose two of their own in the raid.

Action-wise, I'd say this falls somewhere to the "better" side of other 80's flicks like Rambo, in that things are only slightly less ridiculous, but still maintaining a decent sense of believability.

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