Far Cry (2008)

Just released on DVD here in the States last week, I had to wait until this week to review Far Cry due to our Golan-Globus celebration. Uwe Boll's newest movie, it was ins Kino over in Germany, but never made it to theaters over here. Probably something to do with that lack of German tax relief giving him less money to throw at Hollywood celebrities.

Far Cry stars German actor Til Schweiger as a former German special forces dude working a charter boat off the coast of Washington for whale watchers. Then an amazingly hot reporter hires him to take her to an island where her uncle, Rolf Moeller, has reported an evil scientist, Udo Kier, has been conducting experiments on soldiers to make the perfect killing machine. Til isn't so hot about this idea, and he drops her off, planning to just wait at the boat until she's done. Unfortunately, guys with special forces training don't just get to wash their hands of the action, especially when they're top billed in an action film, and Til's boat is hit by a rocket and he narrowly escapes death. The rest of the film is him trying to get off the island, but the reporter being so hot that he can't convince her to leave well enough alone, so because of her, he has to take down Kier.



This isn't bad. Okay, it was, but in a very fun way. Rolf Moeller was great, almost as good as he was in Best of the Best 2. Til Schweiger was a cool good guy, and the reporter, played by Emmanuelle Vaugier, was plenty hot enough as the female lead. The action was nice and steady, though at times went on a little too long and was repetitive. It had plenty of the silliness we've grown to expect from Boll, including the engineered soldiers having bulletproof skin that could only be killed by a shot to the eye, but administering them injections through that same skin was no problem.

There were some pretty annoying things, though. Not only was the action at times long winded and repetitive, but the fights had that Bourne Identity element of too much jumpiness, which is hard to watch. Then there were scenes with bit actors where these jokes would go on way past their usefulness. Even worse, the annoying fat guy from BloodRayne II was in this, only he was even more fat annoying that he was before. I've never understood why director's like fat annoying guys. I've never been a fan of them. Also, Michael Paré is in it for five minutes as Vaugier's boss. Come on, less annoying fat guy, more, Paré.



I was under the impression that Til Schweiger was a legitimate action star in Germany, but now I'm not so sure. Based on his imdb bio, he's done some other action films, but he's also done romantic comedies and dramas too. Also, according to that bio, he turned down the role in Saving Private Ryan as the soldier that kills Tom Hanks, because he didn't know how American audiences would react to that. Well, they reacted to him not being in it by not knowing who the hell he is. It's better to be known as the Nazi who killed Tom Hanks, than to not be known at all, that's what I always say.

Another complaint was the lack of German spoken in this movie. Between Rolf Moeller, Udo Kier, and Til Schweiger, these guys should've been carrying on segments of dialog ins Deutsch. The only thing we got was Tischtennis. Are you kidding me. Hat man wohl ins gehirn geschissen und vergessen umzuruhren? (Did someone shit in your head and forget to stir?)



Not German but just as hot was Emannuelle Vaugier. If they needed a German they could've settled on Eva Habermann, but I'm glad went with who they did. According to imdb she's had reoccurring roles on Two and a Half Men and CSI: NY. She also played Painkiller Jane in the original TV movie, which is interesting, because the chick who we tag as Painkiller Jane at the DTVC is a Uwe Boll mainstay.

Before I go, I must confess that though Anthony Bourdain is listed in the credits, I couldn't remember seeing him in the movie. That might be as good a reason as any to check this out: to see where the eff Bourdain is. It's currently on Netflix's Watch Instantly, so if you have that, it'll only be an investment in your time, which isn't bad. Probably a better film to watch in a group than by yourself, in order to have people to laugh about it with.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0400426/

Post 400: Van Damme Film Fest

I decided for my 400^th blog post to do something entirely different. I'm often asked why I don't cover various Jean-Claude Van Damme films, especially his late 80s early 90s stuff that was in the theater and did pretty well. Now that I've opened things up to more than just Direct to Video, I guess I could do some of them, but I thought by outlining a Van Damme film fest, I could hit all of them in one fell swoop. This is what I would do if I had access to a movie theater from a Friday night into the following Sunday, and could show any of Van Damme's films during that time period that I wanted.

Friday Night:

Cyborg (1989); Bloodsport (1988)

Starting Friday night, I would kick things off with Cyborg, the Albert Pyun classic. The only film on this list that I've actually reviewed, it was the DTV film that made the big time, and Van Damme was the DTV actor that made it big too. Though chronologically it comes after Bloodsport, I think the latter was a much more fun movie, so I figured it would leave a better taste in the viewer's mouth than Cyborg would.

Bloodsport is the film that made Van Damme who he is. The split punch, the bump on his forehead, the great accent. It also had Forest Whitaker, who won an Oscar for his wprk in Ghost Dog back in 1999. Whitaker plays an FBI agent, and his foot chase with Van Damme is one of the best of all time-- if you like chase scenes that play out like Mentos commercials. The amazing end fight with Bolo Yeung, where Yeung tries to cheat with a crushed Alka Seltzer tab he smuggled in in his pants, and Van Damme counters by punching him in the nuts, is the perfect way to leave viewers psyched for more the next day. Also of note, both are Golan-Globus films.

Saturday Afternoon:

Kickboxer (1989); Lionheart (1990)

Saturday afternoon picks up where we left off with Bloodsport the night before, starting with Kickboxer. Noted for baddie Tong Po (played by Michel Qissi), and Van Damme's thong tank top he wears in his drunken dance scene. Okay, it's known for the dance scene as well. Like Bloodsport, Kickboxer spawned DTV sequels that didn't have Van Damme in them.

Along with Kickboxer, Lionheart helped to cement Van Damme's place as a top action star in the US. You could say that Van Damme had made it. As opposed to Friday's films, putting these two in chronological order is a good thing, because it's necessary for the viewer to see the creation of what we know of as Jean-Claude Van Damme: the splits, the buttcheeks, the need for women to want to do him. Lionheart is essentially eye candy for straight women and gay men with a plot meant for us hard core action fans. As much as this image cultivated in these two films would make Van Damme huge, they would also lead to his downfall in popular culture.

Saturday Night:

Death Warrant (1990); Double Impact (1991)

Saturday night's films are all about the Van Damme we think of when we hear the name. These are quintessential Van Damme movies. In Death Warrant, Van Damme is sent to a prison to investigate some murders and what not. Robert Guillaume turns in his best performance since Benson, and the bad guy, known affectionately as The Sandman, teaches kids a valuable lesson in fire safety, when he stops, drops, and rolls after being thrown into a fire by Van Damme.

If the previous five films had you feeling like maybe Van Damme wasn't on screen enough, here comes Double Impact, where our hero plays two roles. Ladies, if you like the clean cut preppy type, he can do that; and if you like the bad boy, he can do that too. It's important to see that in six films we've only covered three years. You can almost see the wave cresting already.

Sunday Afternoon:

Universal Soldier (1992); Hard Target (1993)

If anyone is back on Sunday, they'll be treated to two of Van Damme's biggest films, the point where that wave was at it's peak, before it crested and broke, sending Van Damme back, kicking and screaming, to the DTV world from which he came. Universal Soldier is his one collaboration with Dolph Lundgren, and the end fight scene between the two didn't disappoint. Throughout the time Van Damme was making it huge, Dolph was having less success post Rocky IV, with Masters of the Universe a disaster, The Punisher left unreleased in limbo, and Showdown in Little Tokyo doing almost nothing in the theater. Though Dolph had the poorer Hollywood career, his DTV career has far surpassed Van Damme's so far, and he's handled his fate much better. It's evident here, where Dolph seems to be having fun as the bad guy, while Van Damme is very serious about making sure he "acts well".

We end the film fest with Hard Target, John Woo's debut in the US. Fresh off the amazing Hard Boiled, Woo was a hot commodity, so for his first film to be a Van Damme one was confirmation of just how huge Van Damme had become. How could he know in two short years and three films later, he would make his most money for a picture in Sudden Death, and that would be it. Three years after that he was making Knock Off, grabbing onto anything sturdy as the DTV vortex dragged him back in. Also of note: Wilford Brimley co-stars.

If you wanted to go any further, you could add Timecop, Street Fighter, or Sudden Death, to emphasize the break in the wave, just like you could add Knock Off, Double Team, and especially Universal Soldier: The Return, to highlight his struggle to keep the wave from receding, but I think the 8 I picked, where the wave builds and hits its peak, is enough. You're looking at only 5 years, but it feels like so much more.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000241/

(By the way, I was just notified that Forest Whitaker won his Oscar for Last King of Scotland. My bad.)

Revenge of the Ninja (1983)

For our last post in our Golan-Globus week, it was decided that we needed to have a ninja movie. I had pretty much covered the American Ninja series, so those were out. Then there was Enter the Ninja, the first in the three part Ninja series, but that doesn't have a lot of actual ninja fighting, and Shô Kosugi was a bad guy and in it only at the beginning and the end. So it was settled, Revenge of the Ninja would be our ninja movie to end the week.

Revenge of the Ninja doesn't exactly take place after the first one, because Kosugi's beheaded at the end of that, and here he's a good guy. Anyway, his clan is slaughtered except for his mom and infant son, so a buddy from the States offers to put him up in Hollywood so the two can open an art exhibit. Turns out the friend is also a ninja, and he's using the store as a front to sell drugs. Shock, horror, gasp! Even worse, he's pissed off the mob, and they're kind of taking it out on Kosugi.



This is amazing. Very close to the first two American Ninjas in quality. Kosugi shines, and it was a much better move to focus the film around him instead of The 'Stash like they did in part one. Sure, it's extremely silly, but the question is, how exactly would you like your ninja film? I personally prefer them catching arrows with their teeth, having the capacity to store a Walmart sized inventory of weapons on their person, and the ability to dispatch anyone not trained in ninjitsu with relative ease. This also came correct with a great ending battle, where the bad guy somehow stored a few dummies of himself in the area, knowing he and Kosugi would be fighting there. From front to back, side to side, an amazing piece of cinema.

One advantage to having Kosugi not only in the protagonist role, but also fighting a guy without a moustache at the end, was that we were able to root for him. No one expected him to defeat The Stash in the first movie. Really, it was the only way we could accept him losing, I mean, it's understandable to take one on the chin to a guy with that kind of facial hair. But in Revenge of the Ninja, he was the real deal, and we were all better for it. This was also a much better use of his great skills than Black Eagle was. I'm curious to see what he does in the new Ninja Assassin, because imdb says he's in it. It better be good, that's all I have to say. They have a lot of great Golan-Globus ninja films to live up to.



A lot of people would write a film like this off as "cheesy". "Oh, look at that, you can see when he jumps off the building that he's bracing himself so he lands on the safety mat, then they cut away to him landing on his feet. That so cheesy!" Is it? Is it really? "That sword blade barely touched that guy, and now he's dead. That's so cheesy!" Is it? Is it really? I say it's awesome, that's what I say. I'd rather see a guy jump from a building then cut to his landing, than see him jump in front of a green screen. Maybe if Golan-Globus were still around today they'd be wearing the green screen out too, and I'd call them to the carpet for it just like I do the rest of today's film makers. Which was the better movie, the first Star Wars in 1977, or the one Lucas made in 1999 with all the computer shit? Call Revenge of the Ninja silly, call it ridiculous, call it fun, but don't ever call it cheesy.

I could've sworn John Miller from Undefeatable was in this as the police officer in charge or martial arts training who helps Kosugi out, but from imdb I can't tell. None of these bastards ever have pictures, and I never pay attention enough to the film to find out the characters names, so when I look them up, I'm like, "was that what that character's name was?" He looked a little rounder, but he delivered his lines in exactly the same way-- this kind of slow, halting style. I mean, I didn't see a John Miller in the Revenge credits, but who knows. Maybe I'm just losing it in my old age.



Before I wrap things up, I needed to mention a scene where Kosugi and the John Miller look alike take down the Village People. I'm not sure exactly what they were going for with that, but it was amazing. Cowboy in a blue outfit, sure, why not? "Look at the guy dressed like a cowboy. That's cheesy!" Is it?... okay, I'll stop.

Perhaps no film better embodies the Golan-Globus bouillabaisse sense of film making than this one. You had Native Americans, six-year-olds, and grandmothers all fighting at some point. People were stabbed, slashed, gouged, etc. in myriad ways. Plenty of car chases, fight scenes, and explosions too. It was a virtual cornucopia of amazing action without a hint of pretense. How else would you take your action?

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086192/

The Delta Force (1986)

Looking only at the Golan-Globus films we're covering this week, this was probably the biggest of the six. It has a pretty star studded cast, with Norris, Martin Balsam, Lee Marvin, Bo Svenson, Shelly Winters, Robert Vaughn, and the late Steve James. What's fascinating is how it starts off as essentially a TV drama, and turns into a Norris beatdown.

The Delta Force is based on the real life hijacking of TWA flight 847 in June of 1985. A flight full of Americans leaving Athens is hijacked by two gunmen, and taken first to Beirut, then to Algeria, then back to Beirut, all the while the hostages are threatened, harassed, and the Jewish passengers are singled out. Lee Marvin heads the Delta Force, a special forces unit sent in to retrieve the hostages and take down the hijackers. Right below him on the chain of command is Chuck Norris, and when he finally gets a chance to sink his teeth into the terrorists, it bad news for them.



This is a hard one to deal with because the first hour and a half plays out like a TV movie drama about a plane hijacking. It's not bad, and does a great job keeping things black and white and letting us know that no matter what, no matter what cause someone is fighting for, violence and hostage taking, especially against innocent people, is unacceptable. Then, the last half hour plays out like some of the best action I've ever seen. Norris drives around in this motorcycle equipped with missile launchers machine guns, then finds the head terrorist, and beats the crap out of him in one of the greatest applause scenes in movie history. It's really a question of, do you like your TV drama topped with a half hour of amazing action?

It is very important to discuss the political implications of Golan and Globus making a film like this. They are Israelis, and the Lebanese terrorists who committed this act at the time were fighting to get Israel out of their country, of which they occupied the southern section of it. I don't think comparing the way the Muslim terrorists treated the Jewish passengers to the way Nazis treated Jews was right, because Palestinians and the Muslims of southern Lebanon have legitimate grievances against the way Israel has treated them; but the rest of the film in my mind was totally above board. If an aggrieved segment of the population decides they need to resort to violence against noncombatants, they should expect their violence to be depicted as despicable, as it was here, and it's no less despicable if the people depicting it have a personal stake in the telling.



After 9/11, watching a movie where hijackers take over a plane full of Americans is hard to take, which meant watching Chuck Norris beat the crap out of them at the end was all the more enjoyable. That brings up an interesting issue, though. In school, we looked at two main goals that terrorists have when they carry out their crimes. The first is to hurt a small percentage of the population in order to scare the rest to do what they want. The other is to anger the rest of the population to the point they overreact, which in some cases can be worse. The US spent all of its goodwill it garnered after 9/11 with the Guantanamo prisons and the war in Iraq, but after seeing this movie, I can see better why Americans supported those measures. Because the terrorists who committed the 9/11 atrocities died with their victims, we didn't have anyone for Chuck Norris to kick the crap out of, so to speak, and we needed that.

I must point out again, though, that this wasn't all seriousness. That last half hour was amazing action, and we wanted it more because we had the first hour and a half of these bastard terrorists that we wanted to get their comeuppance. When the head baddie sneaks into that abandoned house, and Chuck Norris jumps through the window with his motorcycle, I have to believe the whole theater cheered. This was the problem for me with Walker: Texas Ranger, the bad guys were often way cooler than he was, so I couldn't root for him. I was rooting for him here, though, and it was great. As fine an example of pre-Walker Norris as there is out there. I wonder, too, looking at the paragraph above, if maybe we could convince Norris to get back into his pre-Walker days and do movies like this again, just so we could all feel better as a nation.



Before I wrap this up, I have to give a shout out again to DTVC favorite Steve James. It was good to see him in a film that didn't involve ninjas, though it would've been nice to see more of his martial arts. I thought this might have been the most successful film he's ever been in, but he had an uncredited role in Weird Science. Let's say this was the most successful film he had a major role in. A great actor who left us before his time.

It's hard to figure out what the right conclusion is for this movie. As an action fan, really the only last half hour is important, but it's vitally important. As an anthropology major who focused on Middle Eastern studies and problems of violence and terrorism, I appreciated the way the hijacking was depicted, even if the story was told by two Israelis. I guess it would've been better if the film had a clearer identity-- either TV drama or low-budget actioner-- but on some levels it still works. Just know that of the total running time of two hours, only the last thirty minutes is action packed. (But it's really action packed!)

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090927/

Missing in Action (1984)

Missing in Action is, of course, not Direct to Video at all. It's very far from it, especially when you consider it made almost ten times its budget in US box office sales alone. That's why it's good to have weeks like this where I go outside the DTV box, and I'm glad my friend at Movies in the Attic selected this one for inclusion. It not only made Norris the star he is, but it proved to both Golan-Globus and Hollywood what audiences looked for in an action film, and paved the trail for the genre's renaissance in the 80s and 90s.

Missing in Action stars Norris as a Vietnam vet who escaped from a POW camp years after the war ended, and is selected to join a US diplomatic mission to mend fences with the Vietnam government. But Norris knows those Commie bastards are holding out on him, so he grills James Hong, the general in charge of Vietnam's diplomatic efforts, until he tells him the whereabouts of the other missing POWs still being held there. After, he's thrown out of the country, and has to go to Thailand where M. Emmet Walsh helps him invade Vietnam via the water so he can liberate his fellow soldiers.



If this is credited as being the film that made Norris big, it's understandable. From the beginning he's amazing, whether he's in the bush toting a machine gun, sneaking around a hotel picking guys off Apache style, or saving M. Emmett Walsh from a beating in order to drive the price down on his boat, it's all great. Again, I'm sure this more brutal and violent Norris is what made him clean up his act and become the Walker: Texas Ranger Norris, but it was sure good fun while it lasted.

I must amend my first paragraph slightly. First Blood was released in 1982, and made double what Missing in Action did, and was probably the main reason Missing in Action was made at all, making it more the film that paved the way to our 80s and 90s greats. It also had a budget $12 million higher, which is telling about the Golan-Globus success model. Why do for $14 million what we can do just as well for 2, and still make $22 million off it. Where Golan-Globus starts to fail is when they try their hands at things like Superman IV. Missing in Action was a very serviceable Rambo derivative with its own stand alone star in Norris. Had they stuck with that type of film, we might still have a Golan-Globus.



Joseph Zito directed this, along with Invasion USA, Red Scorpion, and Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. Of those, only the last one isn't blatantly anti-Communist. It's interesting, because I couldn't find anywhere on his bio that suggests he holds those kinds of political views. It's also interesting to note that he might be the most successful director we've ever featured on here, because three of his films, this one, Invasion USA, and Friday the 13th IV, all held the number one spot in the box office. Joey Zito is gold, baby.

If I hadn't made this clear before, James Hong is the man. The guy has almost 350 acting credits on his imdb bio, starting as far back as the Golden Age of TV. I believe this is the fifth film of his I've reviewed, which is startling considering how many DTV films he's been in, but even worse, I don't have him tagged. How did that happen? What an egregious oversight. Like Richard Lynch, I need to do more of his films, and consider him for induction into the Hall of Fame in 2010.



I'm a huge Anthony Bourdain guy, and love his show, No Reservations. He had an episode on Vietnam, and it's interesting to consider if he had had the same show in 1984, would he have gone then too? Probably not. Not only was 1984 too soon for the wounds of the Vietnam War to have healed, but we were also still engaged in the Cold War. Even in the early 90s, when I first saw this, the themes were somewhat relevant. Just the same, even if the plot is strictly a product of its time, the overall style of the film lives on in a lot of today's action films, and I imagine it still will. Vietnam becomes Columbia, the Middle East, North Korea, Myanmar, and hopefully in twenty years we'll see action films based in those locations and think how much they too are a product of their times.

This is a critical picture in the evolution of the action film, and also one of the roles that made Chuck Norris the household name he is today. I can't think of any better Thanksgiving entertainment, but if you can't watch it today, it's plenty good to watch on a non-holiday too.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087727/

Death Wish 3 (1985)

The second of two Charles Bronson films featured in our week long celebration of Golan-Globus is Death Wish 3, the third of five films in the series. Though the sequels are considered far inferior to the original, part three is really, for our purposes, the one that has had the greatest impact on the DTV action genre.

Death Wish 3 has Bronson back as Paul Kersey, in New York to visit an old friend in need of his help. He gets there too late and finds the friend beaten to death. The cops arrest Bronson, and Ed Lauter, the chief inspector, press-gangs Bronson into working for him to clean up the crime ridden neighborhood his friend was beaten to death in. The idea is, he kills the bad guys, and Lauter and his men get the credit. Once Bronson goes back to his dead friend's apartment, the guy's neighbor, Martin Balsam, gives him the lay of the land, and it's only a matter of time before Bronson goes to work.



This is awesome, the ending especially. Urban warfare carried out by civilians, gangs, and Bronson, with a little help from Lauter. Sure, the action throughout could've been more frequent, but the end was so good it more than made up for it. You have Bronson with a high powered machine gun mowing down gang members like me using a power steamer to clean metal racks that held the pots and pans in the first kitchen I worked in in high school. How do you not love that?

I'm not sure how many more Bronson films I'll do after this one, because he's more of a mainstream theater guy than a DTV guy, but I'm sure I can make exceptions along the way. The guy is just amazing. His work in films like this paved the way for the Dolphs, Seagals, and Van Dammes. Not only that, but the way Golan-Globus amped up the action and turned down the plot, especially at the end, is something these newer guys could think about when picking their next roles. Dolph has done well with Command Performance and Direct Contact, but Seagal with Against the Dark and Van Damme with pretty much everything until Shepherd: Border Patrol aren't looking as hot. I used to make excuses for Seagal and say "well, he's almost 60, we can't blame him for winding down." Not anymore. Bronson made this when he was 64, and it was better than almost everything Seagal has done in the past ten years.



We've had our share of Ed Lauter sightings at the DTVC, but none better than in this role. I wonder what he thought acting opposite C. Thomas Howell in The Sweeper. It must've been a joke to see Howell trying to play a role that Bronson would've killed ten years before, when Howell was still a runt with a machine gun in Red Dawn. It's a perspective on Lauter I never considered when I reviewed that film, but with Death Wish 3, I couldn't not consider it.

One thing that's really apparent from a movie like this is just how much of an influence Golan-Globus had on the Grand Theft Auto video game series. I would even go as far as to guess that the Belmont district in part III was named after the neighborhood this film was set in. Just the violence and chaos on the streets combined with people trying to carry out everyday tasks like going to the grocery store is so indicative of that game. The one difference, of course, is that the Grand Theft Auto series is about a gray area-- your character kills innocent people, runs over hookers after he sleeps with them, blows up police helicopters with rocket launchers, but still kills bad guys-- while Paul Kersey was a good guy through and through, who just played the part of judge, jury, and executioner, but he would never kill innocent people.



MST3K fans will love seeing Martin Balsam in here. I know he's known for a lot more than just Mitchell, probably the biggest being Psycho, but are any of those roles as much fun? "Mitchell, nobody likes you, why is that?" Every line he had in this just made me think "He refrigerates his bowling bag?" or "Mitchell, I'm not going to your parents' house for Christmas." Even better, Balsam was playing the WWII vet retiree looking for someone to clean up his neighborhood while Bronson was playing the younger Korean War vet there to do the cleaning, when Balsam's only two years older than Bronson. Awesome.

I imagine eventually I'll have all five Death Wishes reviewed up here, and it is kind of a shame that I've been at this for three and a half years and this is only the first one, but we're working on it. It goes without saying that these are all required viewing, but I think my friend at Movies in the Attic was right in picking this one for this week.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089003/

Invasion USA (1985)

We continue our celebration of Golan-Globus with Chuck Norris in Invasion USA. Perhaps a product of its time, it still has had an amazing impact on many of today's action films, especially the use of urban and suburban environments and taking everyday life and plunging it into a warzone. With the landscape in the US having changed drastically after 9/11, a film like this is both improbable now, yet at the same time would be kind of scary to imagine really happening, if it wasn't for Golan-Globus' trademark cartoonish violence (which is a good thing).

Invasion USA takes place primarily in Miami, but is about an Eastern European terrorist organization that seeks to destroy the US from the inside out by attacking its infrastructure and causing anarchy. They do everything from impersonate police officers and commit violent crimes, to blowing up houses in residential neighborhoods with RPGs. The CIA know only one man could be behind this, and they know only one man can take him down: Chuck Norris. First Norris declines, because he had a chance to kill the guy before and the government wouldn't let him; but when the bad guy's attempt to kill Norris leaves his grandfather dead, Norris changes his tune.

This was the movie Red Dawn should have been. Sure, elements of it were ridiculous, like the nice suburban neighborhood with people trimming Christmas trees suddenly under siege by bad guys firing RPGs into their houses, but at least the overall concept was a little more believable than the Soviets invading high schools in small town Colorado. And regardless of whether it was believable or not, it was way more awesome. How Red Dawn has become this cult classic, while this is overlooked, is beyond me. And Invasion USA's ability to take malls, office buildings, what have you, and turn them into pitched battles in the blink of an eye, has been emulated in the genre ever since. This is one of my all time favorite action films.

Invasion USA also brought home the difference between pre-Walker Chuck Norris and now, because pre-Walker Norris was amazing. This early to mid 80s Golan-Globus Chuck Norris really was part of the blueprint that built the one-man army action hero as we know it today. This may not be his best role, but it's one of my favorites.

The bad guy is played by Richard Lynch, a DTV mainstay who's been in more things than I can list. Strangely enough, the only other movie I've reviewed of his is Cyborg 3. My goal will be to get ten more films up of his by next October, when he'll be up for induction into DTVC Hall of Fame. As far as this goes, he was an awesome baddie with an interesting twist: he was deathly afraid of Chuck Norris. I'm not sure I've ever seen that before. Maybe Tong Po fearing Sasha Mitchell in Kickboxer 4: The Aggressor.

This is pretty violent, but never in a brutal kind of way. If it wasn't for the language and the misleading images of policemen committing serious crimes, this would be good enough for my three-year-old nephew to watch. I'm not kidding. In the 90s, this level of violence was taken to the next level with films like Terminator 2, which showed some more vicious deaths, and even the Death Wish series, which was another Golan-Globus staple and a contemporary to this film, had a more brutal slant to it; but right here, this stuff could not be taken that seriously. I have a feeling Norris wanted to distance himself from this kind of entertainment, which was why he took the role of Walker, but that was all of our losses in the end. We needed Matt Hunter, Col. James Braddock, and Maj. Scott McCoy more than we needed Walker: Texas Ranger.

There was an actor in this named Alex Colon. His real name is Colón, and since he's no longer with us, I don't want to make fun of him, I just wanted to point out how when his name popped up on the screen, it was during an action shot of Norris driving this swamp buggy, which made it look like it was a 70s TV show called Alex Colon. I don't know if he'd be like a proctologist solving cases, but it just seemed funny.

This might be one of the best action films of all time, so I'm glad my friend at Movies in the Attic gave me an opportunity to review it. If you haven't seen it, it's must watch material. Throw it on your queue immediately.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089348/

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