My review was written in March 1991 after watching the movie at a Times Square screening room.
"Diplomatic Immunity" is a superior B actioner. Its crowd-pleasing, ingenious trick ending will ratify urban audiences in theatrical play this spring while video sales loom strong.
In his best feature since the minor classic "Viper" (starring Linda Purl), made three years earlier, filmmaker Peter Maris is blessed with a clever script and topnotch cast.
Bruce Boxleitner, fitting a mature role comfortably, toplines as a Marine training sergeant what goes over the top when his beautiful young daughter (Sharon L. Kane) is rap;ed and mudered b her foreign boyfriend (Tom Bresnahan). Pic's title comes into play early when Bresnahan and his evil henchman Christophe Neame are returned to their home turf, Paraguay, since both hold diplomatic passports.
His old Vietnam War teammate Robert Forster, now a CIA bigwig controlling Latin American operations, tells Boxleitner to cool it, but the gung-ho leatherneck takes matters in his own hands and heads to Paraguay. His contact there is cynical Billy Drago, offering him arms and information.
The picture gains momentum when Boxleitner teams up with Bresnahan's dominatrix mistress, Fabiana Udenio, and later Drago to mount an assault on the villain's island fortress. Good stunt work and frequent action scenes are a plus.
Supporting Boxleitner in solid turns are Drago, who invests a stock role with terrific "juice", Bresnahan, the all-American boy who starred recently in "Ski School" but is perfect here as a sadistic villain. Udenio, a statuesque beauty who confirms the good impression she made in "Bride of Re-Animator"; and Meg Foster, delightfully heinous as Bresnahan' incestuous mother. Most of the cast gets tgo ham it up in final reel death scenes.
The tiger in the tail at film's fadeout (two delicious twists) is the kind of clever scripting that would benefit a high-priced recent superstar actioner.
