Damn, I can't believe that I'm the first poster here! Come on it isn't that bad movie...
If you dance with the devil, the devil don't change. The devil changes you.
S'on kuule aivan hirveetä paskaa.
What clichés? Thats a word the wannabe critics use when they want to whinge.share
Being a child of the eighties (and what American kid in the 80's didn't hate the Russians, right?), I thought it was awesome.
Where I came from, Born American was a big hit, right up there with other Soviet-hating cinema classics like Red Dawn, the Rambo sequels, Rocky IV, Invasion U.S.A, and Red Scorpion.
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Yeah, Red Scorpion was pretty much the final nail in the sub-genre at the time. I think it's fun on a no-brainer level.
There's enough fans that it got a special edition Blu-ray (a director's cut no less!), which is unfortunately more than we can say for Born American, which didn't even get a decent DVD release.
Uh, I wouldn't call this a "masterpiece". However, being a teenager in the 80's and a cold war buff, I liked it and think it's a forgotten film that deserves at least some credit.
Ironically, Harlin is mostly known as being a director of action. But when this film turns violent in several scenes, those scenes often lack thrust. But the restrained, situational scenes such as the border crossing, and towards the end when you realize there isn't going to be a "mom and apple pie" happy ending, are the most compelling.
If you can transport yourself back to the mid 80's cold war, the concept of hopping over the iron curtain into the powerful and insular Soviet Union almost as a thrill or dare, and then by circumstance getting stuck there with little hope to return, was quite powerful.