Richard Young plays as Vince Deacon, a much honoured veteran of the Vietnam War, and subsequently a supervisor of a Los Angeles Police Department (L.A.P.D.) SWAT team. Action opens in 1972 with Vince in a combat situation crammed with slaughter deep inside of a Laotian jungle (performed by a Philippine jungle) where a former Army comrade, Slater (John Dresden) has turned traitor, thereby siding with the Viet Cong. Deacon naturally finds such apostasy to be unacceptable and, going on a rampage, thrashes Slater to a pulp. With the war past, the film's locale shifts to another form of violence-filled civilisation, in Los Angeles, where Deacon, married and having had a son, does his fighting to the service of the L.A.P.D. Slater, discovering Deacon's whereabouts through television news reporting, arranges for thugs to attack Vince's wife and child in their home. Deacon frustrates this felonious attempt, in the process killing one of the intruders. Although quite possibly the only person in the world who would not be supportive of Vince's resolute defence of his family, Deacon's supervisor, in expected Hollywoodian fashion, demands to be given the hero's badge, while suspending him from active duty, thereby allowing the Deacons to immediately take a much-needed vacation. A weekend of camping is planned in a somewhat bucolic forested region, this seeming to be just what is needed to lift Vince's spirits, but Slater has not been dissuaded by the failure of his henchmen, and renews his assault against Deacon's wife and son. A mania for revenge then possesses the former Green Beret. He soon discovers that he must confront not only the treacherous Slater, but also the latter's rural sheriff brother, an assemblage of imbecilic rednecks, and even the National Guard, all of whom must be vanquished before he may be declared the winner of what has become a brutal contest of wills. It may not be surprising if a viewer decides that much of this action seems familiar, since a good deal of the narrative is derivative from films of a similar forgettable nature, notably, and virtually scene for scene identical with, the initial "Rambo" movie: FIRST BLOOD, that was completed two years prior to this thing, but with a much larger budget. As Deacon avenges himself upon his sundry tormentors, it becomes increasingly obvious that due attention has not been paid by the production team to the film's dialogue as to its action sequences. Yet after all, this is a stuntman's picture, explosives specialists following close behind in importance, each within a pre-CGI environment, and even though the work offers essentially only an assault upon a viewer's sensibilities, this has an advantage of eliminating any need for a decision as to whether or not it will be watched more than once.

Vietnam war vet Vince Deacon is a S.W.A.T. team leader who is suspended from duty for killing too many bad guys. While on a camping trip his wife and son are killed by a group of men led by a villain from his days in the 'Nam. The trauma of losing his family forces him to go on a killing spree against the people responsible leading him into shell shock. The adventure goes from Los Angeles into the jungles of Laos (actually the Phillipines).This film was directed by Cirio H. Santiago, responsible for several grade-B military style action films made in the Phillpines. Star Richard Young is an average looking Joe but gives a nice performance and handles action scenes well. This low budget film was made 2 years after First Blood and barrows from it the idea of a 'Nam vet being pursued by authorities through the outdoor wilderness. In First Blood the character of Rambo did his best to avoid murdering anyone. But the Vietnam vet character in Final Mission has no such qualms and mows down many of his pursuers in a hail of bullets. Director Santiago appears to have fun when staging battle scenes, like a youngster playing with a set of toy soldiers. This film contains nudity and is of course, filled with scenes of violence.

Final Mission (1984) is one of those cheesy, no budget First Blood rip-offs. Unlike the other Rambo wannabes, this movie's great. The director has no shame, he blatantly copies scene-for-scene and shot-for-shot from First Blood. Others may see this as a rip-off, I see it as a funny, horribly acted, badly written and cheesy as hell action picture. There are many scenes from this movie that still boggle my mind. Even today I still wonder if a Gun shop would have an M-60 machine gun (with a full cartridge box) in a storefront window display or is it really sanitary to use a dirty knife to pop out a bullet? I highly recommend this movie, it plays like a comedy instead of a serious action/revenge film. A word of advice, stay away from open motor boats. They always seem to explode in these type of movie.Highly recommended.A (for the cheese factor) F (as a straight movie)

Of all the "First Blood" ripoffs that hit the screen in the eighties this filipino-made movie is clearly one of the better ones. Acting is pretty lousy (with the notable exception of Kaz Garas as the sheriff) but the movie has its good moments.