Uncommon Valor

12/16/19831h 45m

Theatrical Release (US)

~ Seven men with one thing in common... ~

Overview:

A group of Vietnam War veterans re-unite to rescue one of their own left behind and taken prisoner by the Vietnamese.

Director:

Ted Kotcheff

Status:

Released

Language:

English

Buget:

$11,000,000.00

Revenue:

$30,503,151.00

Key words:

vietnam war
vietnam veteran
vietnam
post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd)
war veteran
fight
loss of loved one
heroism
based on true story
laos

Cast

Gene Hackman

~ as ~

Col. Cal Rhodes

Fred Ward

~ as ~

Wilkes

Robert Stack

~ as ~

MacGregor

Patrick Swayze

~ as ~

Kevin Scott

Harold Sylvester

~ as ~

Johnson

Randall "Tex" Cobb

~ as ~

Sailor

Tim Thomerson

~ as ~

Charts

Alice Lau Nga-Lai

~ as ~

Lai Fun

Kwan Hi Lim

~ as ~

Jiang

Kelly Junkerman

~ as ~

Paul MacGregor

View full cast & crew

Reviews (1)

Lloyd
Written 3 year(s) ago
9
Overall, Uncommon Valor (UV) is a less-flashy atypical Hollywood movie of ex-soldiers being reunited to form a team to rescue Vietnam POWs, using good (but not Oscar quality) humor, and decent near-realistic (but not memorable) special effects to tell a 2-part story of forming a rescue team which then performs their mission.

Decades after UV was produced, one could say that it's just another run-of-the-mill movie about rescuing Vietnam POWs; however, this was one of the earlier movies of this genre so I don't think it can be fairly compared with the rest of this ilk. (E.g. Missing In Action was 1985 and the 2nd Rambo movie was 1986.) UV isn't a typical Hollywood attempt at making a blockbuster, yet it did very well in the theater. UV is noteworthy for being more emotional than its brethren; it's not a tear-jerker, nor is it a masterpiece drama since it is a bit light-hearted in many places and uses humor liberally. (The humor isn't comedy per se, I felt that its purpose is to reminder us that the characters are misfits and has-beens, ex-soldiers but not ex-warriors, and they're transitioning from plain vanilla real lives to what's normally reserved for elite teams of soldiers like Delta Force.

UV has a charm about it that most others lack. The acting isn't superb, but it's still very good. It doesn't have tons of eye-candy special effects, but it does use them fairly appropriately to enhance the story; I'd even go so far to say that, unlike typical Hollywood movies of today, instead of dialogue and story gluing together a bunch of CGI action scenes, UV takes the opposite approach of using action scenes and humor to glue together the story parts and demonstrate that the characters are a bunch of misfits, aging former soldiers brought together for a rescue mission. Patrick Swayze's character is unique here, really gung ho, kind of a counterpoint to the aging ex-soldiers.

The 1st half of UV tells a story of ex-soldiers coming together, overcoming their unique prejudices, and re-learning how to work together as a team. Eventually, they form a fairly effective team and the rescue mission is a Go. The action scenes weren't very realistic, but they were still OK, certainly good at demonstrating how the character steadily became a team.

The 2nd half of UV is the rescue mission itself, not really anything spectacular and more typical of a Hollywood film. It's not bad at all, just fairly routine, but done well, nonetheless. The action scenes, in particular, are decent but not eye-popping or noteworthy of realism, yet they're sufficient for the story. (Of course, there are scenes which are a bit over-the-top, maybe worth a half-star ding in the overall rating.)

PS This review is based on my having seen UV in the theater when released, augmented by my just having watched it again over 30 years later.