Details
Produced by TVS Television Limited, 1990. Directed by Donald Crombie, and co-starring Craig McLachlan as Lt. Walter Carey, Christopher Morsley as Capt. Bob Page, Ian Bolt as Lt Bobby Ross, and John Bach as Lt. Cmdr. Donald 'Davo' Davidson. Based on the script of Peter Yeldham. Nat plays Ivan Lyon.
Plot Summary
Heroes 2 - The Return tells the true story of 23 men who risked their lives on a bold and daring mission against the odds. Set against the back drop of the Second World War, this is a story of fanatical determination and devotion beyond the call of duty. When a young British army officer, the charismatic Captain Ivan Lyon (Nathaniel Parker), high on the success of a previous mission and desperate to strike another blow at the enemy fleet, persuades his troop of loyal comrades to mount a new life threatening attack on Singapore harbor, he unwittingly activates a tragic chain of events. Craig McLachlan (star of Neighbours and Home & Away) stars as Lt Walter Carey, who fought alongside Captain Lyon and his men in the fatal Operation Rimau in this tale of courage, loyalty and real life heroism.
General Review
The film is quite a riddle to me. It tells the story of Captain Ivan Lyon and his very private little war with the Japanese. Just a few months before WWII is finally won with the dropping of the A-bomb over Japan, a few good men start on a second raid on the harbor of Singapore. The first raid had been very successful and now Captain Lyon tries all that is in his might to try for the second time to reach the harbor and safely bomb all ships that are in it. Unfortunately his officials don't approve of his plan. They even don't want to talk about the first mission which was a very successful one. Lyon is able to convince higher ranks and gets his green light for the new mission. After a short time of preparation and mishaps the whole bunch starts off to Malay in order to achieve their second victory over the Japanese. It soon becomes all too clear that Lyon has only one very private goal on his mind: freeing his son and his wife from the Japanese imprisonment. Well, things have started bad, but hey come to worse and finally the surviving men are captioned by the Japanese armed forces and in the last days of WWII they are being decapitated. All of this is being told in a - to me - rather slow tempo, the film has its lengths. In the mid of the film, we are being confronted with flashback scenes, a new character comes up. He is trying to find the lost men or at least trying to find out what happened to them. Ironically enough, he meets Lyons wife, who's alive and well. The whole way of telling the story to me seems quite artificial and as I said lengthy. Those of you cannot stand action movies better beware, because this is one. The good guys versus the evil guys with a lot of gunfire and heroism in it. Men's stuff, I'd say...
Nat Review
Well start off with the positive. Nat looks great and young in this one. What else, he's very suntan in the second half of the movie - yeah a lot like Wide Sargasso Sea. And yes, he is the typical stiff-upper-lip British Captain anyone would expect of him. His role could have given some chances for his acting, but bad fortune is with this whole thing. It is - as I said an action movie - and if you happen to get hold of a copy of this out-of-print movie, you'd agree that Die Hard with Bruce Willis is the definite choice if you are looking for really entertaining action stuff, no doubt about that. Nat is trying to give an impression of a hero soldier which ends up in a rather strange behaviour. Being - ohhh - just a macho isn't really one of Nat's strengths and since the script leaves him no big space to develop much more than machismo and shooting Japanese soldiers without any kind of conscience, this is not such a pure delight to watch. Funny but I have the impression that Nat didn't feel too comfortable in this role, neither. And you can feel that very directly. He is somewhat tense, never relaxed or self-assured what I'd expect from a classical hero. Sad but true, not my favorite Nat film, although you have plenty of time with him on the screen.
Status
Out of print, was out on VHS in the UK