I grew up on a steady diet of 1980s-90s action movies –
Rocky, Rambo, Predator, Commando, Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Mad Max, Cobra,
Conan the Barbarian, and a host of James Bond and Bruce Lee flicks to name a few. Big
muscles, guns, knives and explosions, with a few hot chicks and some gratuitous
nudity occasionally thrown in for good measure. The more spectacular and
over-the-top, the better. For the most part, they don’t really make ’em like that
anymore, but once in a rare while a movie like Long Gone Heroes comes
along, which reminds one of the action movies of times gone by.
Starring Frank Grillo, Andy Garcia, Josh Hutcherson and Beau Knapp, the movie
is about a rag-tag bunch of ex-soldiers who go to Venezuela for an ‘extraction.’
Gunner’s (played by Frank Grillo) niece has been kidnapped by the bad guys
(Andy Garcia and his band of mercenaries), so Gunner gets a team together and
sets off for Venezuela to bring her back. There are reasonably big biceps on
display and big guns on display and those are put to good use as Gunner and his
band of former soldiers ‘extract’ the niece (played by Eden Brolin) and shoot
and kill aplenty to get her back home.
The performances are all okay, the dialogue is fine and the plot/story is not
something you haven’t seen before. But all the action is well directed, the
movie moves along a fair clip and the atmosphere is tight and terse, which is
how it should be for this type of an action movie. For middle-aged gentlemen
(and ladies who like a bit of violence) who might have been missing 1980s-style
action movies where the hero and his men go all Rambo on the enemy, Long
Gone Heroes may well be worth a watch. I certainly enjoyed it!
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