Ted Kotcheff · Paramount Pictures · Kino Lorber 4k
★★★★
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Note: This review contains spoilers
## Uncommon Summary
Imagine a movie with Captain America, a Ghost, a Hulk villain, a Jon Bernthal lookalike, Al Bundy's co-worker, and a professional Boxer. And they're all led by Lex Luthor and financed by Robert Stack. Malcolm Wilkerson’s mom even shows up. It sounds random, but they make a pretty solid team. The movie I just described is Uncommon Valor and it was surprisingly an enjoyable movie. This was a blind buy for me, only purchasing it when I found out Gene Hackman was in it. I was pleasantly surprised by the rest of the cast.
The movie opens on a battle scene with a group of soldiers trying to escape the war zone, racing toward a helicopter. One of these soldiers falls behind, but another goes back to pick him up. Unfortunately for both, the helicopter cannot wait for them to arrive and they are left behind. From there we see a news broadcast of POWs coming back home while an older man watches with sadness. This man is Colonel Jason Rhodes (played by the great Gene Hackman). His son, Frank, did not make it back from Vietnam, declared missing in action. Rhodes is convinced that Frank is one of many POWs left behind that the government refuses to acknowledge. He takes it upon himself to lead an effort to find Frank somehow. We flash forward a few years as we see Rhodes continue the search only to continually be hit with roadblocks, such as scammers providing false info or politicians that give him the runaround. At some point, Rhodes becomes financed by a businessman called Harry MacGregor (played by the legendary Robert Stack). MacGregor also has a son who was considered missing in action and is hoping that Rhodes can bring both of their boys home. Rhodes finally thinks he's found Frank's location and makes one last plea to the government for help, but they once again tell him nothing can be done. Left without much of a choice, Rhodes decides to hire a group of Vietnam War veterans, including a few who were on his son's team to embark on a rescue mission.
The team is comprised of "Blaster" (Reb Brown, who played Captain America in two films in the 70's), Wilkes (Fred Ward, who bears a striking resemblance to Jon Bernthal), "Charts" (Tim Thomerson, who once played a villain of Bill Bixby's Incredible Hulk), Curtis Johnson (Harold Sylvester, who also played Al Bundy's coworker on Married with Children), and "Sailor" (Randall "Tex" Cobb, who was a professional boxer before getting into film). Later in the movie, rookie Kevin Scott (played Patrick Swayze, who famously played a ghost in the movie "Ghost"). The group is reluctant to go back to Vietnam, with Wilkes showing signs of untreated PTSD. The group also is wary of the newcomer Scott, since he never served in Vietnam. It's only after it's revealed that Scott's father was declared missing in action in Vietnam does the group finally accept him.
The team goes on to practice the rescue mission on an exact replica of the compound they intend to raid. All goes well and they get the rescue down to an art. Unfortunately, the government gets wind of the operation and demands that it be shut down, fearing it could cause an international crisis. They decline the request. As a result, when the team arrives in Bangkok, they are intercepted by the CIA and all of their weapons are taken from them and they are told to go back to the US, or risk being thrown into jail. The team once again refuses and manages to re-arm themselves, but this time with old WWII weapons that have been collecting dust for ages. With no more financial support, outdated weapons, the team decides to move forward with the operation and find POWs.
## What worked
As I mentioned before, the cast is probably my favorite part of the movie. It was refreshing to see an action/war movie that didn't have the usual suspects (Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Chuck Norris, etc.). With the exception of "Tex" Cobb, the rest of the team was comprised of men that looked like people you could meet on the street. The group clearly had good chemistry and it shows on film. Of course, Robert Stack and Gene Hackman bring a gravitas to the whole thing. I've always enjoyed their work and to have them both in the same movie is something that brought me joy.
While the concept of a soldier returning to Vietnam to recover POWs had been done before in films like Missing in Action and Rambo II, the idea of a grieving father leading the charge was refreshingly new to me. Those previous movies relied on the male fantasy of a lone super soldier singlehandedly taking everyone down, whereas this film is grounded as a father-son tale. The father is an ordinary man, but his sheer determination and will provide the strength necessary to rescue his son, and recognizing that a single person could never pull off such a mission, he smartly builds a team, with the help of an external financier. Also, having the team lose their weapons and support halfway through the movie was a great way to increase the stakes and make them underdogs. That's really when the movie got great for me.
The movie does a solid job of avoiding politics and the glorification of combat. It works as an anti-war movie without ever having characters stand on a soapbox to lecture the audience. Instead, it lets the effects of the war speak for themselves through the missing sons, the struggles of PTSD, and the emotional scars of the conflict. While the driving narrative stays focused on the rescue mission, the anti-war message still pulls through.
Finally, I've got to give props to my guy James Horner, one of my favorite composers of all time. I knew right away he scored this movie when I heard the Andean Flute he's so known for using.
## What didn't
The main drawback for me is the tonal inconsistency. The movie starts off very serious, but then it becomes a comedy for a good chunk of the movie. I realize they wanted to add some levity to the movie since it tackles a heavy subject, but I think they went too far in the other direction sometimes.
I also felt that Patrick Swayze's character Scott didn't really have much to do other than be "the kid". He was the Chico to the team's Magnificent Seven. Just a young guy with a chip on his shoulder trying to prove himself to the older guys. After it's mentioned that his father was declared missing in action, we never hear him talk about it again. I would have liked for him to talk about his father or how his life was shaped by his absence. Scott just felt like a very underutilized character.
Speaking of which, I think some more development of the characters would have been cool, but I understand that probably would have lengthened the movie too much. But I felt like it would have been cool to see more of their respective lives before Rhodes shows up to recruit them.
And finally, maybe it's just a nitpick, I didn't like that MacGregor's son was rescued, while Rhodes son didn't get rescued. It felt a bit like the rich guy winning while the working class guy got screwed over. That resolution just didn't sit well with me.
## Verdict
Uncommon Valor punches well above its weight class. From what I heard on the director's commentary, it was not well received in its time (50% on Rotten Tomatoes as of 9/17/2026). I think that's a shame because it's a solid movie. It's driven by a stellar, blue-collar ensemble, a grounded father-son dynamic, and features a pitch-perfect James Horner score. It stays away from the very cool, yet cliche, tropes of other 1980s action movies and it gives us something genuinely compelling. Even though there are some jarring tonal shifts, I still really enjoyed this movie and I can't wait to watch it again.
Sailor: Man, I'm so far beyond that shit now. I get energy from the air. I talk to polar bears. I converse with paramecium. Man, I fuck nuclear waste.