This no-brainer action flick features a cast that would seem more at home at a reunion for former high-fashion models than fending off artillery fire behind enemy lines: they seem to be modeling their fatigues and posing their fatigue.
Taking the blame when a surveillance project goes awry in South Korea, ambitious CIA agent Victoria "Vic" Elliot (Kathleen York) bids adieu to comrades Hart (Michael Biehn) and Shooter (Adrian Paul) to take a career-salvaging offer from General Burke (Grace Zabriskie), commander of a new elite
force primed to infiltrate the Korean demilitarized zone. Because of its military nature, Vic has to pass basic training like other grunts, and overcome the resistance of hard-ass army regulars like Sgt. Rhodes (Barbara Eve Harris).
Behind the scenes, right-wing Senator Pullman Fowler (R. Lee Ermey) plots to revive the Cold War by drumming up a nuclear confrontation with the North Koreans. Unaware of this agenda, Vic and her new recruits are duped by Fowler's operatives into trooping behind enemy lines. When she sees Shooter
and Hart being tortured by Commie captors, Vic breaks official policy to rescue them. While Fowler and General Burke argue about informing the Pentagon about this potential international incident, Sgt. Rhodes is taken captive.
In the midst of skirmishes with the North Koreans in the Communists' hostile territory, Hart learns that Shooter plans to sell a nuclear device code to North Korean Major Kang (Greg Joung Paik) so that Fowler can prove the existence of a Communist threat. Vic's squad infiltrates the North Korean
base, frees Sgt. Rhodes, and screws up the Commies' computer system. The squad is retrieved by an escape helicopter, and Sgt. Rhodes sacrifices her life to save her comrades from the grenade-bearing Kang. Back at headquarters, Fowler is arrested. Vic is unsure whether she will continue in a
command position.
DEAD MEN CAN'T DANCE is a childish salute to women cussing and combating as avidly as their male counterparts. Like too many contemporary action flicks, it slaps together some hand-to-hand combat, assorted bombings, and an airborne cliffhanger, palming these disconnected scenes off as a
screenplay. Perhaps the filmmakers realize that their stock characters and trite patriotics can't sustain a film. Instead, the movie dances around its lack of structure and suspense, hoping that the audience will be satisfied with bursts of violence. (Graphic violence, extreme profanity, adult
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