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.

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.

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

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)