Uncommon Valor is a 1983 American action war film directed by Ted Kotcheff and starring: Gene Hackman, Fred Ward, Reb Brown, Randall "Tex" Cobb, Robert Stack, Patrick Swayze, Harold Sylvester and Tim Thomerson.

Hackman plays a former U.S. Marine colonel, who puts together a rag-tag team to rescue his son, who he believes is among those still held in Laos after the Vietnam War.

In the early 1980s, retired Marine Colonel Jason Rhodes is obsessed with finding his son Frank, an Army Lieutenant listed as "missing in action" since 1972.

After 10 years of searching Southeast Asia and turning up several leads, Rhodes believes that Frank is still alive and being kept in Laos as a prisoner of war.

After petitioning the United States government for help, but receiving none, Colonel Rhodes brings together a disparate group of Vietnam War veterans, including some who were a part of Frank's platoon: the demolitions expert Blaster; the "tunnel rat" Wilkes who suffers from PTSD; and the machine gunner Sailor.

Former Force Recon Marine Kevin Scott joins the team and later turns out to be the son of a pilot who was shot down in Vietnam and listed as MIA.

With the financial backing of good friend and rich oil businessman McGregor, whose son served in Frank's platoon and is also listed among the missing, the men train near Galveston, Texas in preparation to undertake a rescue mission at a remote POW camp in Laos.

As the team arrives in Southeast Asia, the CIA, fearing an international crisis from Rhodes' actions, intercepts him in Bangkok and confiscates his weapons and equipment.

Still determined to rescue their comrades, the team members put together their expense money given to them by McGregor to purchase replacement weapons and supplies.

Rhodes contacts an acquaintance, deposed local drug baron Jiang, who joins the expedition with his two daughters Lai Fun and Mai Lin.

Blaster makes the decision to blow his charges to prevent the prisoners from leaving the camp, even though the choppers haven't arrived, sacrificing his life in the process.

Charts, Todd Allen as Frank Rhodes, Don Mantooth as a POW, Tad Horino as Mr. Ky, Gloria Stroock as Mrs. MacGregor, Jan Triska as Gericault, and Barret Oliver as a kid.

The film began with a screenplay by actor Wings Hauser, who says he was inspired by the stories of a childhood friend, Gary Dickerson, who had been to Vietnam.

The following month it came out that James Gritz, a former lieutenant colonel in the Green Berets (and the man that both the characters Rambo and Hannibal Smith are based on[according to whom?

The opening scene depicting the Vietnam War was filmed a short distance away in a rice paddy, two miles (3.2 km) from central Hanalei, Hawaii, and 200 yards (183 m) from the Kuhio Highway (Route 56).