Not Another Mistake is a 'Namsploitation flick (hence the first letter of each word in the title spelling "NAM") where Norton, a former POW who escaped his captors, only to have his wife and daughter killed years after the war in a home invasion, has been called back into action when some intel tells the US military that the unit he left behind in the POW camp might still be alive, and they want him to go in and get them out. It won't be easy though, as he only has a rag-tag group of young recruits to help him, and if he's caught, Uncle Sam will disavow any knowledge of him or his team. As they slog through the jungle, dodging traps and ambushes, they're captured by some baddies. Is this where his old unit is being held? And will he be able to escape and save them?
Maybe not the best film, as it's a bit sloggy in points and a bit all over the place, but it gets the 'Namsploitation job done. Norton is exactly what you want out of him for the lead, it's his film, and he carries it accordingly, like he's hoisted one of his fallen comrades on his back and is lugging them to safety in the jungle. We also get a random recognizable face, in this case Wren T. Brown, plus all the requisite hut explosions, jeep and other vehicle flips--which also explode--and bad guy soldier shimmies as they're mowed down with M-16 fire--the only thing we were missing was a helicopter explosion, but man do they tease us with that! The interesting thing is it's long, 99 minutes to be exact, only like 90 seconds of which was credits; but it's a weird, almost fascinating kind of long. Director/writer Anthony Maharaj makes some interesting decisions, the kinds of things that American screenwriting schools would say you shouldn't do, like randomly showing us cattle crossing a dirt road that has no impact on the story at all, or a real-time shot of Norton packing up and hiding his parachute. Even the ending was off, because we have this clear ending point at the 69-minute mark, where Norton vanquishes the baddie, but then there's this 30 minutes of escaping by train, then a shoot-out on a hill while trying to get onto the rescue helicopter. It made no sense that they did that, but in a way it made it more fun. And that's ultimately what this film is about for me, beyond the great Norton, even when it's making the wrong decision, somehow it works in spite of itself.
Richard Norton is one of the best to do it, and I think this film is a great example of what he brought to the table. It feels like he knew exactly what a movie needed from him, and he knew how to deliver it. It's not just being a professional actor, though that's part of it. It's like he knew what a low-budget 'Namsploitation film was, why he was there, and what he needed to do to make it as entertaining as possible, which turns something like this from unremarkable into a fun time. He could do that in a post-apocalyptic Cirio H. Santiago film, a modern team-up actioner with Cynthia Rothrock, or a Hong Kong flick too. I'd say they don't really make 'em like Norton anymore, but the truth is, they never made 'em like him back then either, he was a one-off, but we as low-budget action fans are lucky we had him, and have so many great films of his to enjoy, like this one. Here's to you Mr. Norton, you're one of the greatest to do it, and you will be missed.
The idea that there were POWs in Vietnam who were still being held long after the war was debunked long ago, but in the late 80s, after the First Blood: Part II and Missing in Action boom, low-budget filmmakers based in the Philippines could pump tons of these babies out based on this myth, and Anthony Maharaj was no different. Now the new debunked hoax that's all the rage for movies is middle class white women and/or their daughters getting kidnapped at Hobby Lobbies and trafficked into Mexico. Maybe I'm biased, but the POW-MIA 'Namsploitations seem more fun, but maybe in twenty years there will be a kid born in the 2000s who starts the Straight-to-Streaming Connoisseur, and they'll be all over the trafficking films from the 2010s to the 2020s the way we are these Vietnam films made in the Philippines from the 80s to the 90s. While a lot of these are available on free streamers, many more are from rare VHS rips, like this one on YouTube with hard-coded Dutch subs, which just makes it all the more fun when someone says something and we see it in Dutch on the screen below it. "They got Pappas." "Pappas is getroffen." That's another area where these 'Namsplotations beat their modern trafficking counterparts, a serious collector can find them on rare, foreign VHS, while the trafficking films often don't even have a physical media release. It begs the question: would I like some of these tired trafficking movies more if instead of streaming on Tubi or Hulu, I was watching VHS rips of them on YouTube with hard-coded foreign language subs? At the very least, it wouldn't hurt to try.
As many tropes as this film had, it also had a lot of trope teases. We mentioned the helicopter explosion tease above. I don't know how many of those we had, whether it was just helicopters looming in the vicinity while our heroes had explosive firearms, or situations like the train chase that just lent themselves to a helicopter in pursuit that could meet an explosive end, but there were many moments that would've led to a helicopter explosion in a similar film, but didn't bear fruit here. Another is the Presidential Portrait, there were multiple foreign US offices that scenes took place in, complete with American flags standing near the actors and bare walls behind them, just screaming out for a Bush 41 portrait, or maybe a Reagan depending on when this was shot. When we watch movies like this, we have boxes we need to check off (or tick off if you speak the King's English), and to come so close on some, only to be left wanting, is frustrating. I'm not usually an advocate of Lucasing films, but if you're still with us, Mr. Maharaj, I feel like maybe you should right some of these wrongs with a new version of the film. Just a thought.
Finally, as this is an in memoriam post, we need to give Mr. Norton a second paragraph. We often talk about the period from the mid-80s to the mid-90s as the Golden Age of DTV action, and no one was more instrumental in making that so than Richard Norton. He was larger-than-life, but could use that presence as either the hero, like he was in this film, or the head baddie, like in Lady Dragon or City Hunter. For me, it didn't get any better than him in a Canadian tuxedo beating the crap out of baddies in Rage and Honor 2, culminating in him taking down Patrick Muldoon while taunting him, "come on Tommy!" And that was the thing, even with that larger-than-life presence, he also seemed very down-to-earth, like after he cleaned out a bar full of heavies, you could sit down and have a beer with him. While he will most certainly be missed, the contributions he made to the world of cinema we love so much can't be understated, and as I said above, we're so lucky to have them.
And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on VHS, or on YouTube with hard-coded Dutch subtitles. If you've seen all of Norton's other big ones, this is a fun one to watch in honor of him. We'll miss him, but definitely not forget him. Thank you Mr. Norton, you were one of the greatest.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094920
And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!
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