The Detached Mission

Plot

The movie is set during the Cold War.

A television news journalist aboard the American aircraft carrier U.S.S. Nimitz explains the scenario of current fleet exercise of the U.S. Navy in the central Pacific Ocean. During a live broadcast from the bridge of the Nimitz, the correspondent points out a fleet of "Russian" (Soviet) warships on the horizon commanded by Vice Admiral Chernov.

At the same time, a plainclothed man, later identified as a CIA operative, meets U.S. Army Major Jack Hessalt, a crazed Vietnam War veteran, who is suffering wartime flashbacks and seems ready to dispatch on his own private crusade against the Soviets. The CIA man employs Hessalt to gain control over the U.S. missile facility in the Central Pacific and launch a false flag attack on a third-party ocean liner, sink it, and make it look like the Soviets have done that.

While the American and Soviet ships track each other in the Pacific, a Soviet frigate with a detachment of Soviet Naval Infantry aboard, under command of Major Shatokhin, is 1,500 miles to the south and prepares to return to their home base from a detached mission (independent steaming exercise).

After arriving at the U.S. military base, Hessalt receives a secret order to launch a missile with a conventional warhead at a passenger cruise ship. A group of CIA and military officers goes golfing together with influential American military industrialists and plans this operation as a part of conspiracy to frame the Soviet Navy with the sinking of a civilian liner. The aim of the operation is to derail an upcoming Soviet-American disarmament summit in order to assure continued profitability of certain U.S. defense contractors.

After Hessalt finds out that he and his men are actually expendables most likely to be assassinated immediately after the completion of their mission, he goes ballistic and takes full control of the base, arming a cruise missile with a nuclear warhead instead of conventional one, and prepares to strike the Soviet eskadra so he and his henchmen could escape from the island and disappear among the ensuing chaos.

Meanwhile, an American hipster-lookalike couple, local airline pilot and his wife, spends honeymoon on the island near the missile base, Hessalt orders his men to eliminate the unnecessary witnesses. Woman has been killed, but the man managed to escape, shortly thereafter teams up with the Soviets to punish the villains.

After the Soviet Chief of Naval Staff found out that Hessalt acts on his own, he orders Major Shatokhin and his detachment to procced upon a search and destroy mission, find and neutralize the missile launch site. The Soviets face the difficult task to prevent possible World War III.

Significance

The Detached Mission was filmed and released shortly after the second Rambo installment was released, and according to many observers was the Soviet Union's response to that film. According to the lead actor, Mikhail Nozhkin, this was the last anti-American Soviet propaganda movie filmed before the Soviet leadership ordered an end to anything that might irritate the U.S. Government. In a 2006 interview, Nozhkin said,

...they didn't let us film, Gorbachev was already in power, which means chaos had started. A movie on a military theme, and we couldn't get arms, they say, "Here's a Makarov pistol, that's it." They wouldn't give us anything in order to avoid offending the overseas "friends": we are all for peace and so on.