Sylvester Stallone is in his element as the eponymous Vietnam veteran who has retreated to a rural community where he acts as a tourist guide for visitors on his ramshackle old PT boat. When he is approached by some human rights folks who want to charter his boat to seek out some missing Christian Aid missionaries up-river in strife-ridden Burma, he eventually acquiesces and they are soon in a world of pain at the hands of the brutally sadistic "Maj. Tint" (Muang Muang Khin). It's an end-to-end action movie, pyrotechnics galore with some seriously graphic - thereby authentic - scenes of violence that have their roots in a plausible storyline based on well documented abuses from South East Asia in the 1970s. The dialogue is a bit gung-ho, but this is about characterisations and Stallone, Graham McTavish ("Lewis") and Julie Benz ("Sarah") help create a suspenseful drama that is light on message and heavy on delivery...
