Born American

1986

Action / Drama / Thriller

3
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 22% · 1 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 22% · 1K ratings
IMDb Rating 4.3/10 10 2351 2.4K

finland

Director

Renny Harlin Photo
Renny Harlin

Top cast

Albert Salmi Photo
Albert Salmi as Drane
Thalmus Rasulala Photo
Thalmus Rasulala as The Admiral
Mike Norris Photo
Mike Norris as Savoy Brown
David Coburn Photo
David Coburn as K.C.
720p.WEB
855.12 MB
960*720
English 2.0
NR
25 fps
1 hr 32 min
Seeds 5

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by TOMASBBloodhound 5 / 10

A Cold War curio.

Reviewed by tomimt 5 / 10

Decent debut, but I'd be lying if I'd claim it great

So what is the truth about 'Born American' (or Arctic Heat)? The full truth is, that it is a debut movie of an action director who has done couple of hits and a couple of misses. And despite of its childish and almost propaganda like portrayal of the soviets, it does have a couple of interesting scenes in it.It's easy to say, and see, that BA is an product of its era. Cold war was on and Soviet Union was seen as a huge menace. It's not only action film painting this kind of images about the soviet union, but maybe it is one with the most over the top approach, as almost all the Russians are shown as dirty and almost barbaric lunatics.The plot is quite simple: three Americans are exploring Finland and they decide to cross the border to Soviet Union. The silly sods venture deeper into the Russia and are soon caught, which leads into an action scene, where almost everything explodes or burns down. Later, when the yanks are taken into the prison/labor camp the movie turns towards so unrealistic direction, that you don't know to laugh or to cry.'Born American' isn't Harlins best movie, but surprisingly enough it ain't his worst either. It lacks the fluent movement of more experienced director, but over all as a debut movie it has some merits working for it. In 80's standards the action works pretty well and out of all brainless action movies made during that era it fits in pretty well with the rest of them.
Reviewed by bk-87668 3 / 10

Worth slowing down while passing this car wreck

A "first movie" for a director is often quite interesting to watch. Sometimes the movie is excellent, sometimes full of film student stuff and pretentious tricks and usually tries too hard with too little. Born American is of the third variety.The story follows three guys who are vacationing in Finland and cross over the border to the Soviet Union. Guess if the Soviets are depicted as interesting characters or something else (hint: this movie was made in the 1980s)? Anyway, things start exploding (often with the same sound effect). Also the Russians prove to be evil etc. Which is sort of interesting considering there was some tendency to self-censoring in Finland towards these kinds of things.The plot is actually quite ridiculous because it goes way over the top at one point. It really feels like they had made the movie up to that point and they noticed they have way more money left so they added more things - or bought some of that new crack-cocaine. Some twists really made me laugh out loud in their outlandishness or how cliché they were.Actually, if this movie starred Chuck Norris, for whom it originally was planned, it would be quite well known after that Chuck Norris revival fad. Now it's just a curiosity for anyone interested. As a Finn, I'm ashamed of this movie by Renny Harlin (he DID make a few good movies, though. I still like you, Renny). Ashamed and also proud, few countries have something unifying like this that people all around the world can laugh at.The bottom line: DIY MST3K.
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