Thursday, April 19, 2018

CODE NAME VENGEANCE (1989) **


A young prince and his mother are kidnapped by a terrorist (James Ryan).  America wants to protect her interests in the prince’s nation, so Don Gordon sends mercenary prisoner Robert Ginty on a rescue mission.  Along the way, he picks up his old mentor (Cameron Mitchell) to join the team as his explosives expert and together, they set out to rescue the prince.

Code Name Vengeance was directed by David Winters without any real sense of style.  The action scenes are plentiful and lots of stuff goes boom.  However, the staging of these sequences leaves a lot to be desired.  The pacing is also slow and sluggish, especially in the middle section of the film.  The script is painfully predictable too and you can spot every single plot twist coming from a mile away.  (Seriously, would YOU trust a mission masterminded by Don Gordon?)

The cast has all seen better days, but they’re the only real reason to watch it.  Ginty isn’t bad, and he escapes the flick with his dignity more or less intact.  It’s just unfortunate that the quality of the movie is closer to Warrior of the Lost World than The Exterminator.  He does get a good love scene with Shannon Tweed, who plays a sexy helicopter pilot.  Tweed looks great topless, but honestly, the film really needed one or two more of these scenes to make it worthwhile.  Mitchell provides some spark as the crusty old mentor, although his mildly amusing antics aren’t nearly enough to salvage the picture.

Winters and Mitchell teamed up the next year for the hilarious Space Mutiny.

AKA:  Code Name Hellfire.

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