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Review of Laser Mission

 

If you are willing to go into a movie called Laser Mission knowing no lasers will be fired during the movie, Laser Mission is an okay movie. Maybe I am biased because I like low budget action films. Maybe I'm biased because there are worse films with worse acting (Samurai Cop anyone?). This movie has some cheesy acting, some ludicrous action, some cliched plot twists, and bad accents but it is an alright movie to get your buddies together and have a fun time. (spoiler warning ahead)

The plot of Laser Mission is that the African Hope Diamond has been stolen by the Soviets who are in Africa. They are after a scientist played by Ernst Borgnine. (big spoiler ahead). It is revealed that that diamond if touched by a laser will trigger a nuclear weapon (how is anyone's guess).

The CIA hires a mercenary played by Brandon Lee to stop the soviets and their mercenaries. The soviets capture Borgnine and it is the job of Lee's character to rescue Borgnine and get the crystal from Soviet hands.

Throughout the film the song “Mercenary Man” (which must have been the only song they got credits for) which is written by Mark Knopfler of Dire Straights, but is sung by his brother David Knopfler plays. The song is well paced and played in the intro, around the thirty minute mark, after the the fifty one minute mark, and at the end of the film. Nothing else about the score or soundtrack stands out.

There are some bad accents in this movie. The two characters we see both early in the film and later on (one named Roberta, the other's name, I could not get) have terrible hispanic accents. At least those sound like anything in particular. The accent of the (I assume German) mercenary Dieter Eckhardt sounds like no accent in particular, just generally “foreign”. It's bad.

There is cheesy action in this movie. The VW bus the main character and his female sidekick ends up flipping because it goes over some village table. The baskets that fell from that table set on fire. It does not look like the type of action that would warrant anything setting on fire. (major spoiler ahead) This movie has some holes and some problems, but it is still a lot of fun. I rate it not so bad it's good, but bad yet decent.

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