Spanish exploitation vet Jess Franco directed this tiresome action thriller about American secret agent searching for big time cocaine dealers in Cuba (or something). The film is an example for the Americanization of European B-cinema that started in the 80's - Dark Mission looks like an American TV movie and nothing else. There's nothing here that reminds of whatever talents Jess Franco once had. Even French actress Brigitte Lahaie looks surprisingly bad in this awful, uninspired yawnfest.

Nothing says cult more than a film directed by Jess Franco starring Christopher Lee, Chris Mitchum, Brigette Lahaie and Richard Harrison. Only Jess Franco could mess up an all-star cast like that. CIA agent Derrick Carpenter (Mitchum) heads to an unnamed Latin American country to take on big time drug dealer and former Castro buddy Luis Morel (Lee). Along the way, he unwittingly falls in love with Morel's naive daughter (Cristina Higueras) and keeps running into the wife (Lahaie) of his recently killed partner. All this mixes to create a movie that isn't too exciting.

Richard Harrison does his one minute at the beginning and 2 minutes at the end bit. He gets the best line though at the beginning. He is the head of the CIA and says to Mitchum's character, "I don't like you. You are a drunk and a womanizer. But we need you. You are the only one here who knows Spanish." There are a other few funny bits like when Mitchum and his girl head to a hospital to check out drug addicts. They wheel one body past the girl and she says, "Oh God! It is my best friend Maria!" (a character never mentioned before this point). Perhaps the funniest bit is a dinner scene that Franco decided to do with synch sound. No problem there except someone locked some dogs in adjacent room and they bark at all the wrong (right) moments. Hilarious. There is one big action scene at the end (relying heavily on stock footage) and it appears to have been edited by a blind man. But at least we get to see Christopher Lee get blow'd up (that should make Peter Jackson happy).

After a few years experimenting with no-budget porn-saturated projects, prolific Spanish Director Jess Franco had returned to making more 'respectable' films by the late 80s. 'Dark Mission' has helicopters, explosions, espionage, Brigitte Lahaie and Christopher Lee ... and is mostly gloriously terrible!

Like a particularly meandering episode of (80s action adventure serial) 'Airwolf', this effort's style of filming and acting has all the hallmarks of an American daytime soap. Eurocine had by this time begun to model their films on Hollywood produce, but at a fraction of the cost. Robert Mitchum's son Christopher is the nadir of the piece as Derek Carpenter, a cocky, strutting CIA agent sent to South America to bring down drug lord Luis Morel. Christopher Lee once again plays Christopher Lee, here playing Morel. Uninspired he may be but he brings a certain gravitas to his scenes. Hearing him say 'sons of b*tches', however, will never be a comfortable experience (didn't he once refuse to say Dracula's dialogue in a Hammer film? How bad could it have been?). There's no sign of Lina Romay, but regular Antonio Mayans is briefly on hand as an uncredited Dr. Meryl Ramos, revealing the disturbing effects of drugs to Carpenter, who gleefully takes photograph after photograph of the victims.

Franco co-wrote this, but his usual personal vision is hard to detect here. There is one familiar theme though - his attitude to drugs. For a creative artist who has made many delirious, psychedelic films, he has always portrayed drugs in an overwhelmingly negative light. Incest, rape and other forms of sexual abuse is a passion of his, but drugs? Evil. This is, of course, the point of view that propels what thin story is on display here.

Louis Alborado's music score is lightly jazzy, sprightly and often inappropriate, displaying much of the bland hopelessness that cursed much of the late 1980s. And while the editing is remarkably sloppy on a few occasions, there's no denying the excitement generated by a fast moving, fairly spectacular finale. Should I mention the jeep pushed over a cliff-edge which bursts into flames well before its cue, or would that be unkind? For the destruction of such an expensive prop, there was no way they'd leave that on the cutting room floor! There's fun to be had here, but any hope of character empathy is definitely sunk by the dreadful leading man. My score is 6 out of 10.