User reviews

Rather than the abomination that was released in 2010, this is what the A-Team movie should have been like. The necessary pieces are all there, desperate situation, chase scenes with vehicles jumping/flipping over or crashing through things, people falling or being flung through the air, thousands of rounds of ammunition expended and last but not least, big explosions.

Even with all that going on, this feature is only marginally entertaining. It is ham and cheese at it's best (or worse depending on your viewpoint). The dialog is bad and the plot is so formulaic that you know what will happen well before it happens. The buddy-buddy bonding scene in the beginning is not believable and adds no real value other than to give the audience a quick introduction to the team and their "We are bad ass" attitude/history.

There is a fair amount of violence which includes a graphic torture scene. The story, what little of it lacks cohesiveness and as a result jumps around more than a Mexican jumping bean on a pogo stick.

For those looking for mindless entertainment with gun play and explosions, they will probably be satisfied. For those wanting a good story to go along with the violence, probably not.

About the kindest think I could possibly say about this movie, is that it is funnier than 'Commando.' Starring Fred 'Where the hell did my career go' Dryer as a Marine who lives by his own rules.(clever huh?) After the killing of all his buddies, and the kidnapping of his gruff but loveable Colonel, Yep... you guessed it, he goes on a one man rescue mission (against orders naturally) to rescue the Colonel, and to kill as many non-english speaking persons as possible. Laughably cliched from start to finish. Whoever wrote this should have their crayons taken away.

I decided to dust this one off and give it another watch. I don't know if that was a good thing. DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR is the quintessential one-sided, "We're good, they're bad" action film. Not since John Wayne's THE GREEN BERETS (1968) have I seen a film so amazingly biased.

The scariest thing about DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR is the film's politics. The film is so glaringly jingoistic that it landed itself on the "Worst List" of the book "Reed Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People." While set in the fictional country of Jemal, it is quite obvious who these guys fighting Israel are supposed to be. And who the good guys are. While discussing the complex problems in the Middle East, Ellie asks Burns, "Are you the kind of person who knows what is exactly right and what is wrong?" "Yes," replies Burns before he tells her "don't get us mad." DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR is the kind of film where multiple bad guys can't hit the hero (granted his underlings do die for the cause) with machine guns, but he can blow them up with a rocket launcher while driving a car. Where a "by the book" bureaucrat finds out the hard way (via car bomb) how "savage" these people really are. I think The Phantom of the Movies summed it up best in his review when he said, "it may well be the best 1943 war movie made in 1987." It would be funny, if it weren't so darn frightening.

Actually, there is a bit of fun to be had with DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR. Director Leonard, a veteran stuntman, crafts some nice car chases with a rather nice car stunt at the film's end. The film definitely holds its own against its contemporaries such as THE DELTA FORCE (1986) in that regard. Dryer, with visions of Eastwood in HEARTBREAK RIDGE (1986) dancing in his head, is amazingly bland as the tough as nails Marine. Watching him drag around here, it is hard to believe he carried a TV series for so many seasons. You can tell he was hoping for a cross over opportunity into theatrical features, but failed miserably. But there is something inherently funny in his featureless performance. Finally, fans of "what in the world" moments should also keep an eye out for the scene where Brian Keith, being photographed by terrorists, gives them the finger…with his ring finger!

Imagine 6 terrorists in a truck and 2 terrorists in a car all with sun-machineguns and firing/killing every living thing in their path, shooting heavily on cilvilians and killed them earlier, yet ou hero with a pistol which had only 1 or 2 bullets left, is chasing them, avoiding all of heavy bursts magically, omg thats a true failry tail, no my mistake, its like some lonely tunes cartoon. And the terrorists AKA 47s were bult in a way that they kill any person other than our hero. OMG, thats all. here I stopped watching this and fast forward just to see a scene where Joanna Pacula invites our hereo. The truth is I just wanted to see Joanna Pacula, but this highly intelligent film even stopped me to watch any further. Hope you get the rest.

Fred Dryer stars as a gung ho marine who rounds up the troops and conducts a rescue mission in response to the U.S government's underwhelming response to his commanding officer's(Brian Keith) abduction. Of course it is the Arabs who are behind it and basically this is jingoism at it's most hideously lame. The movie has an interesting cast (Brian Keith, Joanna Pacula, Paul Winfield and Sasha Mitchell) but all of these counterparts are mainly wasted in favor of Fred Dryer's charisma-less performance which consists of grunting and looking deeply ticked off. The movie seems to live in a timeless vortex where repetition rules the day. Everything about the movie is tired and clichéd but the details are so groan inducingly lame and so absurd you just keep rolling your eyes in disdain. All of this would be enjoyable had Death Before Dishonor contained some punch in the action sequences but unfortunately these one sided action sequences feature a three digit body count on one side, while only one good guy dies. At this type of ratio, it is no wonder the movie went into obscurity.

* out of 4-(Bad)

"Death Before Dishonor" is a cheesy, nasty, jingoistic piece of work, and pretty fun on that level. In any event, it does exactly what it should be doing, and that's delivering lots of gunfire, explosions, and brutality before revving up for a nicely rousing finale. The villains are utter creeps whose demise we eagerly anticipate, and our hero is a jut jawed type who everybody knows damn well will take on all comers in order to do what's right.

It's also the sole feature film vehicle for TV star Fred Dryer ('Hunter'), who plays Marine sergeant "Gunny" Burns, who's stationed in the Middle East. When terrorists manage to kidnap his superior, Colonel Halloran (a lovably crusty Brian Keith), he goes into action. Luscious Polish babe Joanna Pacula plays a dubious journalist covering the terrorists' activities, Paul Winfield (rather wasted) is an officious, typical bureaucrat (the kind of guy in this type of film who will insist that the hero do things by the book), Sasha Mitchell is one of Burns's young soldiers, and Rockne Tarkington, Mohammed Bakri, and Kasey Walker play our unsubtle villains.

This marked the only 1st unit directing credit for veteran stuntman and stunt coordinator Terry Leonard, who's worked on films ranging from "McLintock!" to "The Green Hornet". You know it's comfortably familiar stuff, when, even if you're watching it for the first time, you can easily predict upcoming lines of dialogue. The on location shooting is a bonus, as is the excellent music by the under-rated Aussie composer Brian May. The action is first rate, and keeps us happily watching for the duration. And just to show us how sadistic the baddies are, the most memorable scene has them mutilating Keiths' hand with a power drill and threatening his young associate with similar treatment. That makes it all the more glorious when Dryer and associates, with the assistance of the Mossad, launch the climactic attack on the stronghold where Keith is being kept. It's guaranteed to get you cheering and pumping your fist, right up to the final frame.

Seven out of 10.

Nothing really to see with this one. There's some torture scenes and some people get shot and stuff.

The acting is terrible and the script is pretty abismal.

There are far better movies of it's kind out there.

Cardinal Richelieu said: "War is one of the scourges with which it has pleased God to afflict men."

The scourge who afflicts men in this wheeze is Gunnery Sgt. Burns (Fred Dryer). Burns is a career soldier, battle hardened and grizzled. He has his own interpretation of American foreign military policy, all foreigners are suspect by default and therefore subject to his military policy.

Armed only with this simple misunderstanding (and highly powered automatic weaponry), Burns' ire is aroused when his superior and friend, Col. Halloran (Brian Keith) is bushwacked and spirited away by babbling, machine gun toting "types". Burns' initial bafflement with his superiors reluctance to blame and incacerate every non-American in a hundred mile radius soon gives way to righteous indignation.

Bullets are soon being chambered, grenades are attached to bandoliers and rocket launchers hefted. Before you can say "United Nations peacekeeping envoy" Gunnery Sgt. Burns is (with the help of a few other people who don't stand on ceremony when there are asses to be kicked) laying siege to the desert fortress of a large man who looks like the product of an unholy union between Chewbacca and Dave Lee Travis (sorry, not funny if your not from the UK). After the smoke clears (and we have learnt that any combatant who has received a knife to the chest still has to be punched in the face really hard and fall from a terrace to ensure neutralisation), everyone who deserved to be (except the writers) is riddled with bullets, blown up and in one case has had a jeep dropped on them.

Possibly you may think I don't care much for this film, based on the above, but you'd be wrong. This is a slightly above average actioner, decently edited action scenes and pushes all the politically wrong buttons to get any red blooded blockhead like me baying for blood.

Its a shame Fred Dryer couldn't bring the same understated, laconic charm to this effort that he did to seven years of the excellent cop show Hunter, but he does make a pretty good action hero. Not a bad action pot boiler and I didn't even know it was Islamophobic until I looked it up on wiki.

This was typical of the one-sided, unintentionally funny, and jingoistic action movies that came out during the Reagan Administration, and as such, clearly shows its age.

See Edward Zwick's "The Siege" instead.

Good casting and good plot. Modern movie watchers can say "predictable"; however, they've seen lots of action films SINCE 1987 that make plot elements here rather familiar. Don't you think? They acted like marines; everyone was fit and could do the wall climbs, etc. People seemed to be willing to do things not for money--that was a bit unusual, to the end that the "good guys" won! It was patriotic, sure, but in this age (2011) of from the top-down complacency, this patriotism comes across as welcome, I'd say. Good Action. Only the blond photographer lady seemed miscast to me. As you can see from the high score, I liked it!

to me,this was just a standard run of the mill military actioner.i didn't think it brought anything new to the genre.it wasn't very exciting.even the final gun battle at the end of the movie was ho hum.this thing is also very predictable.having said all that,the movie was passable entertainment.Fred Dryer(the 80's TV show Hunter,and ex-football player)plays the main character in the movie,while Kathryn Erbe( Eames-Law and order:Criminal Intent)lookalike Kasey Walker plays one of the main terrorists.Dryer is OK in his Role,but I thought Walker was very impressive.anyway,you've probably seen it all before.for me Death Before Dishonour is a 5/10

This movie is an ultra patriotic, one-dimensional all-American military hero movie from the Reagan era. Do we like this kind of stuff? YES! It's great for relaxation at home. It's not great by any means, the action is OK/mediocre, the acting is (just forget about the acting), the story is standard, in total it's nothing we haven't seen before. I guess you have to be a fan of this type of movie to enjoy them. The movie itself knows what it is and doesn't try to do anything else than stick to it's safe formula. At least you know what you'll get from this.

6 out of 10

Death Before Dishonor is an ultra patriotic and macho 80's action in the same vein as Rambo-First Blood pt.2 and The Delta Force. It is not as good as the films I have just mentioned and is in many ways cliché and little bit on the cheesy side. It is mostly a recruitment poster for the US Marines, but is a good film vehicle for Fred Dryer.(who is best known as Hunter) Death Before Dishonor delivers big on action with some excellent stunts, explosions and shootouts. Fred Dryer may not be the best actor, but he is good with firearms and is athletic and rugged enough to be a good action hero and is convincing as a Marine Corps badass. Director Terry Leonard did a good job as his only gig as director and there is a good support cast with Brian Keith and Paul Winfield. Rockne Tarkington of Black Samson fame did well cast as main baddie Jihad. I remember watching this as a young lad with my father when this originally had its run on cable, while certain elements of the film are dated, it holds up pretty good with most action movies of the same period.

I first saw the movie when my dad rented it many years ago and since have recently looked to purchase it again. It is one of my favorite movies aside from "G.I.Jane". I thought the cast did a wonderful job and the storyline was great. It shows just how dedicated the cast/characters are to protecting this country and that they won't dishonor the USA and with my brother who was in the U.S.AirForce, he also loved the movie.I love military movies and I think this one is definitely one of my favorites and always will be. I say that the directors,writers,producers and cast did a terrific job with a great movie.Nice job...

Thank You, Christina Durci

Death Before Dishonor takes itself too seriously, and in this case it's a plus. Though it's lead isn't the best actor in the world, it's good to see someone different beside the Chuckies and Stallones. It's actually a really put together film, that I wouldn't call spectacular, but it treads the thin line between fair and good, where it's closer to good. It has a different setting too, the middle east. Sergeant Gunnery Burns (Dryer is caught in an ambush, his marines slaughtered, his commanding officer (Brian "Family Affair" Keith) is kidnapped along with two escorting marines, by merciless terrorists, who's ways of getting answers are brutal. One marine's hand takes a hell of a drilling from a Mackita, at a terrorists/bitch's hand. A nasty piece of role. When they go for the leg next, he folds, against that ever existing rule, as well as his shamed C.O, Death Before Dishonor. A great title. The ambush sequence is fantastically shot, where at the end of it, Dryer yells s..t after jumping from a bridge, into a gully, his jeep, he evacuates, prior, exploding. There's some other good action pieces too, that makes great use of location. Some of the violence is raw, but this is one of those better action pieces, a two week runner, that's not that far fetched as you would think. Joanna Pacula, (remember her) co stars, as a bold photographer who first gets on Dryer's bad side, a side you don't want to be on. We too see the loyalty of terrorists, one driving his van straight into the embassy.

Not a bad movie, I've seen worse. They overplay the "Marine Hymn". They play it about 10 times in the movie but it has some good action scenes. The scene where the terrorists are learning to use plastic explosives is funny, especially the look of relief on their faces when their instructor cuts the det cord before the plastic explodes.