B Movie Bonanza

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/47326997

a.k.a Soldier of Fortune

Tagline

The Future of the world rests on just one man!

Elevator pitch

I... can't even imagine. The "James Bond Holiday Special"?

Summary

Freelance secret agent has to retrieve a kidnapped laser scientist before the bad guys use him and a stolen diamond to develop a superweapon.

Trailer

• https://youtu.be/37i1Adt8OFc

Personnel

• Director: Beau Davis
• Writers: Phillip Guteridge, David A. Frank

Cast

• Brandon Lee
• Ernest Borgnine
• Debi A. Monahan

Info

• Wikipedia
• IMDb 3.5/10

Opinion

This, and Legacy of Rage, were the only movies starring Brandon Lee I still hadn't seen. So when I saw it available on (legit) free streaming, I went for it.

I don't think it's unfair to say it's terrible: the story, the editing, and oh my god the accents! Whether it's so bad it's good, or so bad it's just bad is up to you. Personally, I found it entertaining enough, and Brandon Lee irrepressibly charming enough, to stick through it. (The trailer is Lee being all "grim serious hero", but for much of the film he's winkingly delivering one-liners on a par with Connery or Schwarzenegger.)

I refer to it as the James Bond Holiday Special, because, like the Star Wars Holiday Special, it's incoherent, at times inexplicable, and probably the result of people doing way too much coke.

If you want quality drama and a sensible plot, this ain't it. If you want to see a guy sidekick a baddie into a guillotine, this is your jam!

Here are two reviews, one on each side of the debate:

• So bad it's good: https://talkfilmsociety.com/columns/schlock-value-laser-mission-1989
• So bad it's bad: https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/bad-movie-diaries/laser-mission-bad-movie-diaries

A Little Bit of Politics...

A whole different issue, though, is the political context of its production. About 10 minutes in, it dawned on me this might be another Red Scorpion.

If you don't know, Red Scorpion, featuring future Brandon Lee co-star Dolph Lundgren, is a 1989 action movie about a hero who fights against assorted Communist baddies in a fictional Portuguese-speaking country in southwestern Africa, that was shot primarily in South Africa and then-South-African-occupied Namibia. Laser Mission ticks all the same boxes.

And Red Scorpion, despite being a "US" movie, turned out to have been produced in part using money secretly funneled from a propaganda wing of South Africa's apartheid regime (thanks to Jack Abramoff of the MPA, later the central figure in multiple Washington corruption scandals).

The fictional southwestern African country was a thin veil for Angola, where South Africa (and, indirectly, the US) was involved in a war against the Communist government there (supported by Soviet, East German and Cuban advisers and troops), which in turn supported liberation movements in Namibia and South Africa.

Whereas Red Scorpion stays relentlessly on message about the need to defeat communism in Africa, meaning the need to support the apartheid regime, Laser Mission doesn't bang on much about the poltics of the situation, and the central casting Soviet baddie does have another agenda. But still...

Movie

All full movie links I post are for free, no account required, licensed (AFAIK, IANAL) streaming VOD in English (or original language with English subtitles) and work at time of writing in my location, Mexico. Availability and language options may be different in your location. Asterisk by the one I watched.

• Tubi - Laser Mission (1989) *
• FreeMovies+ - Laser Mission (1989) (in the web browser, unfortunately nav bars at top and side, also black bars top and bottom)

Legal stream finders

• https://nobraincellsleft.github.io/JustWatch-Search/title/tm156953
• https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/laser-mission
• https://reelgood.com/movie/laser-mission-1989
• https://en.kinorium.com/91420/

Screenshots

As you can see, I still need to improve my screenshooting skills without triggering Tubi's interface.

Tubi's interface disappears but FreeMovies+ in a web browser has all that stuff visible all the time. (On a Roku, FreeMovies+ doesn't do this, it gives you proper full screen.)

"¡Soy el capitán Brownface!"

#actionmovies, #legitfreemovies, #brandonlee, #ernestborgnine, #bmoviebonanza