***SPOILERS*** Having this gut feeling that his twin brother, CIA undercover agent, Craig Brandt is in trouble and being held hostage in Beriut Lebanon Dayton Ohio high school basketball coach Chris Brandt, both twin brothers played by Michael Pare, travels there to rescue him.
Knowing that the odds are against him, even the US Embassy refuses to help, Chris goes solo and later recruits the both friendly and wise-cracking Lebanese taxi driver Gilad, Gabi Amrani, and US Emesssy secretary Sandara Ross, Jennifer Runyon, to assist him. It doesn't take long, with him killing one of the bad guys in a ferocious knife-fight, for Chris to track down his twin brother Craig and a number of US hostages in this hideout in downtown Beriut. Trying to be a Rambo Chris is a bit over-matched and sadly comes up short in the hero department.
As you would have expected Chris messes up royally in not only having his brother re-captured but those who are holding him and the US hostages, The Kashmullah,take them out of the city. The entire group of US hostages, including Craig Brandt, end up being held in the Kashmulla stronghold fortress of Bakarbadeh some 20 miles outside of Beriut. It's then when the US government get's involved in that Chris had made a mess of everything that they were trying to do, free the hostages and Craig Brant, with their top honcho in Beriut Charlie Wolff,Lonenzo Lamas, and his sidekick the grenade packing and rocket launching expert Harold, Michael Downs, going into action.
Overlong action film that just goes on and on with a number of totally unnecessary sub-plots that includes a ridicules kidnapping of Sandra Ross by non other then her contact in the Lebanese Secret Government Emile, Menahem Einy. There's also the head of the Kashmullah US educated Abdel, Alon Abutbul, who seems to be more interested in playing a silly cat and mouse game with both Chris and Craig Brandt then getting on to business and freeing 25 fellow Kasumullah members held in US and Israeli prisons.
The two really stand-out performances in the movie has to be the taxi driver Gilad who at least makes things interesting, compared to the brain-dead-like Chris & Craig Brandt, with his both wise-cracks and Steve McQueen and Gene Hackman-like action driving sequences and young and confused Kashmullah member Yahzi, Ishai Wureit. Yahzi in fact stole the acting honors in the movie with the most realistic and moving scenes in it.
Having his whole family massacred by the hated Phalangists in 1982 Yahzi was torn between leavening his war torn country of Lebonon for the USA where he wanted to start a new life. In the most telling sequence in the movie, besides the big shoot-out in the end, Abdel really gets to Yahzi in how the US mistreated both him and his family as well as his country Lebonon. This made the murderous Abdel & Co. for once seem human, to the audience watching the film, in explaining his hatred of the US and it's allies in what they did to his once peaceful industrious and neutral, of the violence in the Middle-East, nation. It's later that Abdel showed his true colors and feelings in what he really thought about the naive and impressionable Yahzi, as well as those Yahzi's who joined up with him, but by then it was a bit too late for Yahzi to realize that!
Knowing that the odds are against him, even the US Embassy refuses to help, Chris goes solo and later recruits the both friendly and wise-cracking Lebanese taxi driver Gilad, Gabi Amrani, and US Emesssy secretary Sandara Ross, Jennifer Runyon, to assist him. It doesn't take long, with him killing one of the bad guys in a ferocious knife-fight, for Chris to track down his twin brother Craig and a number of US hostages in this hideout in downtown Beriut. Trying to be a Rambo Chris is a bit over-matched and sadly comes up short in the hero department.
As you would have expected Chris messes up royally in not only having his brother re-captured but those who are holding him and the US hostages, The Kashmullah,take them out of the city. The entire group of US hostages, including Craig Brandt, end up being held in the Kashmulla stronghold fortress of Bakarbadeh some 20 miles outside of Beriut. It's then when the US government get's involved in that Chris had made a mess of everything that they were trying to do, free the hostages and Craig Brant, with their top honcho in Beriut Charlie Wolff,Lonenzo Lamas, and his sidekick the grenade packing and rocket launching expert Harold, Michael Downs, going into action.
Overlong action film that just goes on and on with a number of totally unnecessary sub-plots that includes a ridicules kidnapping of Sandra Ross by non other then her contact in the Lebanese Secret Government Emile, Menahem Einy. There's also the head of the Kashmullah US educated Abdel, Alon Abutbul, who seems to be more interested in playing a silly cat and mouse game with both Chris and Craig Brandt then getting on to business and freeing 25 fellow Kasumullah members held in US and Israeli prisons.
The two really stand-out performances in the movie has to be the taxi driver Gilad who at least makes things interesting, compared to the brain-dead-like Chris & Craig Brandt, with his both wise-cracks and Steve McQueen and Gene Hackman-like action driving sequences and young and confused Kashmullah member Yahzi, Ishai Wureit. Yahzi in fact stole the acting honors in the movie with the most realistic and moving scenes in it.
Having his whole family massacred by the hated Phalangists in 1982 Yahzi was torn between leavening his war torn country of Lebonon for the USA where he wanted to start a new life. In the most telling sequence in the movie, besides the big shoot-out in the end, Abdel really gets to Yahzi in how the US mistreated both him and his family as well as his country Lebonon. This made the murderous Abdel & Co. for once seem human, to the audience watching the film, in explaining his hatred of the US and it's allies in what they did to his once peaceful industrious and neutral, of the violence in the Middle-East, nation. It's later that Abdel showed his true colors and feelings in what he really thought about the naive and impressionable Yahzi, as well as those Yahzi's who joined up with him, but by then it was a bit too late for Yahzi to realize that!