Born American

1986 "Freedom is just a word… until you lose it."
4.2| 1h37m| R| en| More Info
Released: 30 August 1986 Released
Producted By: Cinema Group Ventures
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

A trio of American students vacationing in Finland cross the border into the USSR and are soon imprisoned following a skirmish with Soviet soldiers.

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terekidi The amount of nonsense in this movie is just overwhelming. A group of Americans (3 young men) goes to Finland to drink some beer and shoot some cans from a shotgun (because there is no way they'd be allowed to do that in US... right). Then the story takes a weird turn and becomes un-watchable:The group decides to illegally cross the border into USSR for no apparent reason. Then, they end up in a village, where they kill the priest, a few civilians and a bunch of soldiers who arrive to the village shortly after. We are not even going to focus on the fact that an army of soldiers armed with AK assault rifles can't hit a target located just a few feet away, but the main characters managed to kill everybody by shooting AKs with just 1 hand.Trying to escape, they burn half of the village down and eventually end up... in the same village, where they get caught and sent to prison. In prison, the story becomes so twisted that you can't watch it while being sober. More people get killed. Apparently Russian prisons have bazookas and Israeli UZI in their armory. Who knew? So, what's the bottom line? A few guys illegally cross the border, kill dozens of civilians and soldiers, get imprisoned, kill more people, escape, cross the border illegally again... but it's OK, because they are Americans. TRASH
janne-junnonen This is an interesting film considering the era this film is from. This may seem like your average B-class action movie, but it also has a political tint to it.The film is intentionally over-the-top critical to USSR. At the time the norm in Finland was ass-kissing the USSR, not ass-kicking. Times were tense, and the film pis*ed of (or scared) politicians so much that is was BANNED in Finland at the time.B-class it may be, but it still is probably one of the best Finnish action movies of all time. (Well, depending on whether or not you count war movies as "action movies"... Finland has produced some very good war flicks.)
Jonathon Dabell Born American (GB title: Arctic Heat) is a bad, bad film and it's made worse by the fact that it portrays every level of Russian society in a very unflattering manner. I'm well aware that at the time of this film's release, relations between the US and the USSR were strained, but the offensive depiction of Russians in this film is enough to drive even an American viewer for the exits!The story concerns three young Americans vacationing in the Arctic Circle region of Finland. Whilst deer hunting, they stray into Russia and in their efforts to escape they inadvertently decimate a small town and its army garrison. After all that, they are captured anyway, and find themselves thrown into a Siberian prison camp where they are to be forgotten forever, thus cancelling out any embarrassment or tension their actions might have caused between the two war-mongering nations.The drab and freezing prison scenes are boring, but they at least convey Russian prison conditions effectively. The part of the film that displeases me most is the ludicrous, violent episode in which the three Americans try to shoot their way out of the Russian village. No disrespect, but if three men from any nation did that in another country (other than their own), surely it would be only right and proper for them to be thrown into jail for a very long time. This film asks us to sympathise with them, but in my opinion they deserved all the punishment they received..... and more! Don't bother with this film. It's xenophobic and offensive in the extreme.
winginit Not a great movie, but then, it starred Mike Norris, not known for great movies, though in this one he did more acting than usual.David Coburn as KC was the best part of the film (if somewhat uneven) while the character Mitch was the worst. He had no real redeeming qualities. Frankly, I was rooting for him to die so I wouldn't have to watch him anymore.Most striking was how much "stuff" Renny Harlin managed to fit into the film. If only it weren't so disjointed or so full of gratuitous violence.A must for Coburn fans. Great moments and a great comparison piece to see how much he's grown as an actor.