Customer Reviews

Chain of Command

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Chain of Command is an acceptable,delivering made-for-video action film.Once again,Roy Scheider plays the US president (in slimy mode here)and the plot is strangely more intricate and surprising than you might expect from such a film.Overall,this delivers the goods and is very watchable because of it.

Pay attention as this review is about the 2000 version with Roy Scheider. This is a good movie with plenty of action for fans of that genre. Roy Scheider plays a president that is a philanderer. When one secret service agent, played by Patrick Muldoon, saves his life he is transferred to taking care of the command code briefcase (football) for the president after he strikes a superior. An Asian man of power kidnaps the president and tries to take control of the football. Can our hero stop them from using it? I was surprised at how this did not get more media coverage as I never saw it till I rented it, but I was surprised at the cast, acting, directing, F/X, production values, and music. This is well worth at least a rental and I intend to buy it myself. Good quality DVD with decent replayability. If you enjoyed this, catch Executive Decision [Blu-ray]

CA Luster

I think what's so surprisingly good about CHAIN OF COMMAND is its barefaced audacity to show us a pretty worthless president, and to allow awful things to happen because of personal greed and misguided justice. Roy Scheider plays the newly elected President, a man who is screwing his best friend's wife, and anything in skirts. Patrick Muldoon is a secret service agent who is tired of watching this skirt-chasing moron, so he transfers to the football division, which is the group of men who are sworn to protect the box that contains a nuclear device which can start world war. Michael Biehn, looking bored, still manages to ooze a certain erudite smarminess that works as a traitor, and director John Terlesky (a former actor of such films as DEATHMASTER 2) keeps the action frisky and at times unpredictable. The real coup though is the casting of the delightfully underappreciated Maria Conchita Alonso as the vice president who must make all the decisions once all hell breaks loose. She is brilliant in a role that could have been comic in the wrong hands. John Beck ( a former leading man THE OTHER SIDE OF MIDNIGHT) is also quite good as the warhawk general.
Muldoon is appropriately heroic and his youthful good looks help in a convincing role. William R. Moses (FALCON CREST) also shows up in a surprisingly good performance.
CHAIN OF COMMAND pulls some surprises, and pulls no punches in its declaration against nuclear power. It's a corny, sometimes contrived movie, but it is also a frightening and evocative one. Don't laugh if off cause you haven't heard of it.

Staring at the wall for 90 minutes would be much more fulfilling. Don't complain later I didn't warn you. Amazon really needs ratings to start from -5

That being said, this movie is hilarious. Bring in some horrible actors (let's face it, boys and girls, a minor role on Saved by the Bell was probably Patrick Muldoon's best work), a ridiculous plot (I don't care what the details are, any movie in which Taiwan plans to take over China can't be taken seriously), and a laughable script, and you just might have something worth watching... once... okay, maybe twice. This movie joins the ranks of the Scorpion King, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, and the entire genre of soft-core porn as things to be watched only for their mind-boggling (and truly entertaining) awfulness. You've been warned.

That being said, this movie is hilarious. Bring in some horrible actors (let's face it, boys and girls, a minor role on Saved by the Bell was probably Patrick Muldoon's best work), a ridiculous plot (I don't care what the details are, any movie in which Taiwan plans to take over China can't be taken seriously), and a laughable script, and you just might have something worth watching... once... okay, maybe twice. This movie joins the ranks of the Scorpion King, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, and the entire genre of soft-core porn as things to be watched only for their mind-boggling (and truly entertaining) awfulness. You've been warned.

This movie planned to be alot better to me. I really had a bad plotline. It almost seamed like it was never going to end.