Film / No Dead Heroes

Max Thayer NEVER Dies...

The Mission: Terminate the KGB Jungle Experiments.
The Goal: Destroy the Human Killing Machines.
The Order: Leave No One Alive!

No Dead Heroes is a 1986 action movie starring '80s B-grade action icon Max Thayer, John Dresden and Nick Nicholson, where Max plays a soldier who finds out his old supposedly-dead buddy from The Vietnam War is still alive... and is being used as a mindless killing machine by a ruthless KGB project.

In the 1970s, a botched rescue mission into a Vietcong camp, led by US Marine Lieutenants William Sanders (Thayer) and Harry Cotter (Dresden) results in William being the only survivor of the raid, having witnessed his friend Harry being captured by the Vietcong's Spetsnaz advisor, General Ivan Dimanovitch. The war soon ends, with Harry presumed dead by everyone including William, but a decade later Harry turns out to be still alive... and is now a ruthless assassin working for General Ivan, now headlining a KGB Project meant to strip prisoners of their humanity.

Dragged back in action, it's up to William to confront his old, brainwashed friend, to bring back Harry at all costs, and inspire the plot of an MCU movie a few decades later. Huh.

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No Dead Tropers:

• Big Bad: General Ivan Dimanovitch, the KGB advisor and Torture Technician working for the Vietcong during the Vietnam War; after the opening prologue, a following Time Skip a decade after the war had ended reveals Ivan had become a KGB director spearheading an experiment that converts captured prisoners into killing machines.
• Bookends: The movie starts with a lengthy action scene in which William, our hero, is (seemingly) the Sole Survivor of a botched mission, with his team and the POWs they're assigned to rescue killed in action (sans Harry, who was actually captured alive and used as experiment of a KGB project). The film ends with a lengthy action scene of which William is the Sole Survivor because moments after snapping Harry out of brainwashing, Harry is instead shot by Ivan, and Barbara gets riddled by bullets as well attempting to help William.
• Boom, Headshot!:
  • In the opening rescue, Ivan personally — and gleefully — executes a prisoner by smashing the prisoner's head into a wall, and then shooting him in the skull.
  • William offs Ivan this way in the final shootout, thanks to Barbara tossing her pistol at him.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Harry, a former US Marine converted into a KGB assassin, thanks to a microchip implanted in his brain.
• Conveniently Placed Sharp Thing: The final scene in Rome, where William is being strung on a rack while his partner, Barbara, is subjected to being raped by Ivan's second-in-command. But the henchman is too preoccupied having fun with Barbara that he left his belt — with a combat knife — withint Barbara's reach. Cue Barbara grabbing said knife, stabbing the henchman, then killing another guard for his gun and breaking William out.
• Dark Action Girl: Barbara, the Cambodian guerilla who is in charge as trainer of Ivan's South-East Asian army, is also quite handy with a gun and turns out to be a secret ally to William and the Americans.
• Dies Wide Open: Ivan, the main villain. He's in the middle of gloating, after all, having shot Harry, and then Barbara, before William manages to grab Barbara's pistol and put a bullet in Ivan's face. The camera then zooms in to Ivan, his face permanently fixed in a surprised expression with a bullet-hole in his forehead.
• Downer Beginning: The movie opens with a botched rescue mission to liberate South Vietnamese and American prisoners from a Vietcong base. It starts smoothly, but then Ivan leads a band of Spetsnaz into gunning down fleeing prisoners. Of the Marines sent on the mission, William and Harry are the only survivors, but then Harry is captured alive by the Spetsnaz, and everything goes worse from there.
• Falling-in-Love Montage: Between William and the guerilla girl Barbara after the raid on Ivan's Cambodian base, after Barbara confesses to William that she's assisting the Americans to avenge her family, who were killed by Ivan's regiment during an ethnic cleansing.
• Family Extermination: After the Time Skip, Harry is then revealed to have been converted into a KGB assassin. The first assignment Ivan gives to him? Sending Harry back to the States to his family... and slaughtering all of them.
• Fat Bastard: Ivan's second-in-command, an overweight Sergeant who gleefully forces himself on Barbara.
• Fingore: Pre-Time Skip in the Vietcong camp, Ivan tortures an unfortunate American POW by ripping his fingernails off via pliers.
• Groin Attack: During the opening scene, William nails a Vietcong in the nuts with a crossbow.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: In the final confrontation between William and Harry, they end up beating the snot out of each other in Rome. William spends most of the fight trying to get Harry back, and succeeds when he smashes Harry's head into a wall, damaging the microchip in Harry's brain.
• Large Ham: Ivan tends to ham up most of his scenes, thanks to Nick Nicholson's solid performance. It's actually quite a glorious sight to behold.
  Ivan: [interrogating an American POW] If I say you're a CIA agent, then YOU ARE AN AGENT! [shoots said POW in the face]
• Neural Implanting: The method used by Ivan to control Harry and convert him into his personal assassin, via a KGB-developed microchip implanted surgically under Harry's skull.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Towards the end of the film, Ivan, for no reason other than being a dick, decides to have Barbara raped by his Fat Bastard subordinate as punishment for her betrayal.
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Harry is assumed dead after being shot by Ivan's soldiers, but it turns out that he has instead been converted into a killing machine serving Ivan.
  • Harry's family, consisting of his wife and teenaged children, have this very reaction the moment Harry steps into their house, as the last time they heard from him was his alleged death a decade ago. Too bad Harry is holding an Uzi and ready to massacre everyone.
  • William has this reaction as well after meeting Harry... right after the family masssacre.
• Sadist: Ivan. Why else would he be assigned as a Torture Technician for the Vietcong? From gleefully beating captives to death to ripping the fingernails of tortured captives, he absolutely loves his job.
• Stuff Blowing Up: Basically every big battle scene has stuff exploding, including huts, buildings, towers — what can be exploded, will explode. It's a 1980s action flick, after all.
• Tap on the Head: This is the only method of releasing mind-controlled victims of the KGB neural implants, by hitting them hard enough on the head. William manages to release Harry from Ivan's control after tackling Harry into a wall, the bump behind Harry's noggin damaging the microchip and allowing Harry to regain his senses.
• Villain in a White Suit: Ivan spends the rest of the movie post Time Skip in a white suit instead of the Russian military uniform he wears in the opening scene.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: Towards the end of the film, William finally releases Harry from mind control after damaging the chip in Harry's brain. As Harry regains his senses and realizes what he has done as an assassin, William tries helping his friend back to his feet... but they're interrupted by Ivan, still alive, who then guns down Harry barely a minute after he's free from brainwashing.

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