The Delta Force (1986)

I love how Lee isn't even looking where he's shooting.

Chuck Norris may be ironically famous again thanks to the internet and its obsession with taking things that are considered lame and making them not lame by way of overblown forced epicness, but there was a time, back in the day as it were, when he was actually considered something more than just a punchline. And Steven Seagal actually had movies released in theaters. Eddie Murphy was respected as an artist. So was Micheal Jackson. And the graphics in "Super Mario 64" were cutting edge. And Nickelodeon was actually a really good channel. And Green Day was considered edgy and rebellious. Shocking, I know, but it's all true. I'll quit now before young minds are too collectively blown.

"The Delta Force" is one of Norris' best known films, and was released by Golan-Globus Productions, who were a home-video action movie gold mine in the 80's, producing such films as "Enter The Ninja" and "Death Wish 3" among many others, including two Stallone films, "Over The Top" and "Cobra." In other words "Cheese-filled 80's action-splotation." And if you like films like that, then "The Delta Force" is going to be right up your ally. If not, well, you're probably going to hate it.

Go ahead. Tell him you didn't like it.

The story is inspired by a real life plane hijacking that occurred in 1985. Lebanese terrorists take over a plane from Athens to Rome, forcing it to instead land in Beirut. They then make the standard demands of the US government on threat of the death of the passengers. And it's up to Delta Force, a highly trained Spec Ops unit, to save the hostages. There's a little more to it, including an Israeli Army sleeper agent in Beirut and the alternate imprisonment of the Jewish passengers on the plane, but that's the general idea we're working with here.

Personally, I wasn't a big fan of this one. I can't lie. From the concept I was expecting something along the lines of "Executive Decision," a movie that kicks ass, but instead it was more akin to a clunky, not very well paced bore-fest. True, it had it's moments, but overall it didn't have nearly enough action and relegated its star and title military unit to barely being in the movie at all for what seems like a good 70% of its far too long 2 hours and change run-time. But the biggest issue I took was that the narrative was very difficult to follow for me due to some rather bizarre choices in the editing booth.

The initial hostage taking scenario I was fine with. Robert Forster as Abdul, the main terrorist, is fine and plenty scary as the main villain, and kind of functions as an evil Raul Julia. His twitchy partner, Mustafa (David Menachem), I was less a fan of. And while they did do a passable job of being sweaty and creepy, they both had this really annoying habit that all bad guys have in movies, in that they don't understand that a gun is generally regarded as a ranged weapon. They always shove their gun in the faces of the people they're threatening, which is indeed an effective way of scaring someone, but at the same time is pretty dumb of the person holding the gun because if the person being threatened had the basest amount of self-defense training they could disarm him so quickly his mustache would spin like a joke bow-tie. It's no huge deal, it's just a pet peeve of mine.

"Don't MAKE me put myself in a position where you all could easily overpower me!"

But after the hostage taking is when I loose track of all narrative cohesion with this film. All the Jewish passengers are rounded up and unloaded in what is probably the best and most intense part of it, and had the whole movie been centered around that idea and fleshed it out a bit more while keeping the run-time at a reasonable hour and a half, "The Delta Force" would probably been a stronger film.

This is also the bit with the best acting, as some big talents like Joey Bishop and Shelley Winters really ratchet up the tension with the fear over being exposed as Jews to the terrorists. But surprisingly it's German actress Hanna Schygulla as the stewardess having to point out the Jews on board, and (shockingly) George Kennedy as a Catholic priest stepping up to stand with them who steal the show. That was some really good stuff, and Robert Forester plays it evil enough so that there's really no telling what will happen. That should have been the backbone of the whole film. You've even got action movie veteran Bo Svenson as the pilot. I hate to say it, but this movie doesn't really need Chuck Norris or Lee Marvin.

 "Say, Chuck. You ever feel unnecessary?"

"Only if I allow the situation to not need me."

"Baby, that joke won't be around for another 20-some years."

After that bit is where I started to lose the plot. The plane lands in what I thought was Beirut, and they take on more terrorists, who board the plane and take the Jewish passengers off, and free the women and children. It's at this point that Delta Force finally gets to do something after over an hour into the film, but surprise, they screw up and don't realize there are more than two terrorists on the plane now. Way to recon that one. So one of the hostages gets killed as a result. Good job, Delta Force.

I thought that the movie had to be getting close to over, since I thought the terrorists had landed where they initially wanted to go, but as I had to look up later online after being thoroughly confused, that scene was actually taking place in Algiers. They had made a stop along the way. Then it cuts to Delta Force training to take out an airliner full of terrorists (which they never end up doing by the way), and then *boom* the terrorists are shown bopping about somewhere in the Middle East. I'm assuming it's Beirut, but the movie never actually shows them landing there. All of a sudden the hostages are in jail cells somewhere and I'm wondering when in the hell this all happened.

"So Fred from Scooby Doo, Chuck Norris, and a rabbi are driving in a van..."

It really felt like I missed a 15 minute chunk of the movie somewhere. How did the terrorists land in Beirut? What was the result of that? Did they have to fight anyone? Did they just let them go on their merry way once the plane touched down? I have no idea because the movie doesn't seem to think I need to know that. The thing that really makes that confusing later is that before the hostages in Beirut (?) are rescued by Delta Force, they free the Jewish prisoners. But I had no idea where those prisoners are in relation to the other hostages, since I never knew where the terrorists went after unloading them. And more to that point, since I just saw Delta Force evidently having the time to set up elaborate training exercises, I didn't even know when the two rescues were taking place.

The best way to describe it is to imagine that you're watching the first half of "Air Force One." Then, halfway through, throw in the last half of "Clear and Present Danger." Yeah, it's still Harrison Ford and yeah there's still ethnic people being evil, but you would tend to wonder what in the hell happened to that whole "plane thing." And yeah, you'd probably wonder why the villain is Venezuelan instead of from Kazakhstan now, but hey, they're still ethnic right?

The last act of the film is when we actually get to see Delta Force kick butt in all its glory, but for me it's a bit too little too late. There was just too much jumbled mess leading up to it. And the acting from the passengers was so much better than the acting from anyone in Delta Force that I really wanted to see the hostages more than their rescuers. And the last act is an endless wave of action that gets more than a tad repetitive, since I know nothing about nor care anything about any of the soldiers in Delta Force at this point. All I know about them is that they all dress in black and have an easily spotted coil of white rope looped around them.

Seriously with the rope. What's up with that?

That's really all I've got for "The Delta Force." It's got a following, and it's notable not only for its 80's-tastic theme song but also for being Lee Marvin's last film before he died, but even those things really didn't do enough for me. The song is far too happy sounding for the tone of the film and is overused to the point of absurd annoyance, and it gets really grating to the nerves. Frankly I started to wonder if that was the only bit of music for the entire film because I swear it's either that freaking song or silence.

And as far as Lee Marvin goes, I love him but he's not really in it a whole lot, and when he is in it he doesn't do very much except bark orders over a portable phone he starts yelling into a full two seconds before he actually brings it up to his face. Although the coolest bit that Lee has in the film involves that phone as he gives the most badass reading of the phrase "Take 'em down!" in the history of cinema. Seriously, it's glorious. But that's about it.

You could actually say the same thing about Chuck Norris, really. He isn't in "The Delta Force" very much considering that he's the top-billed star and accused main character. True he does some of the expected kung-fu-ing, but it's nearly two hours into the film until we see it, and it's really not much to write home about since it's not much of a fight. To be honest, I think Harrison Ford in "Air Force One" ended up kicking far more ass than Chuck did in this film. And growling "Get off my plane" before breaking the villain's neck and tossing him out of the loading bay at cruising altitude is a far better one-liner than whispering "Sleep tight, sucker" after shooting a guy under a bed.

Then again, Harrison Ford didn't have a ROCKET BIKE. Chuck's got the advantage there.

THE BOTTOM LINE - If you cut out an hour of "The Delta Force," you'd actually have an okay action movie. Nothing to write home about, but it would be okay. It's just too damn long with not much happening until the last 40 minutes. If you only watched that last act though, it's alright. I'm not saying it's bad, I've just seen a lot better. Count me out of the fan club on this one.

The Expendables 2 (2012)

What do you think of when the word "awesome" is said? Webster's defines it as:

awe·some (adj.) - 1. Extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring great admiration, apprehension, or fear 2. Extremely good; excellent.
 

But there's more to it than that, isn't there? When faced with something that is truly, unequivocally awesome, it's more of a mindset, a state of being, almost a form of ecstasy bordering on enlightenment. To know it is to reach a state of Nirvana as your feeble, mortal vessel puts out a hand, slips the surely bonds of Earth and touches the face of God.

One would imagine hang gliding from the top of Mt. Everest, swimming with a 30 foot Great White Shark, witnessing the birth of a star, or seeing that really big weird cylinder thingy from "Star Trek IV" up close and personal as valid examples of things that are awesome in the textbook definition of the word. And these would be perfectly acceptable answers, but for me there's really only one thing that comes to mind when I think of "awesome."

Reb Brown is known to be so manly that the mere act of watching him can cause your eyeballs to grow beards.

That's right. See that beefy slab of meat up there one-arming an M-60 like it was a pool toy? That's Reb Brown, one of the great unsung 80's action deities. He's a man so macho, so badass, and so indescribably hardcore that he once used a dead 10-foot bat-monster as a hang glider in order to dropkick a caveman in the face. That's not a lie, that is a note of record. He was also Captain America. Twice.

Anyways, the point is that for me, Reb Brown is so awe-inspiring with his aura of awesomeness that it's almost transcendent watching him. It's not that he's a great actor (he's at best just okay) or even that he was in good movies (they're at best enjoyably bad), but he's having such a good time, and he's so unbelievably pure and sincere about what he's doing that you can't help but have a smile on your face. And come on, anybody packing enough ridiculous heat to kill the entire world, something Reb does on a daily basis, is pretty much demanding of your respect, envy and undivided attention.

It also helps when little robots are calling him things like "Big McLargehuge," "Slab Bulkhead," and "Punch Rockgroin."

Which brings me to "The Expendables 2." Why isn't Reb Brown in this movie? At this point they've gotten nearly everyone else. Why not him? I know that the most mainstream he ever got was being featured on an episode of "Mystery Science Theater 3000," one of the best episodes ever by the way, but why not? I thought the whole point of "The Expendables" was to have every action star they could find in it, and Reb does have a bit of a cult following, especially thanks to the internet. I don't care if it's just a small part, just give him a gun, have him scream "MOVE MOVE MOVE" in his shrill, raspy, womanish shriek, let him shoot something and there you go. You made the internet happy and you gave someone a paycheck. Sounds good to me.

When talking about "The Expendables 2" it is probably worthwhile to mention what my impressions of the first film were. To be perfectly frank, I found "The Expendables" to be pretty lackluster. I was pretty let down in fact, since it was near impossible to look at the talent involved and not assume that "The Expendables" was going to be roughly the greatest thing ever made. And I don't care if they cast some WWE guys - they cast Dolph Lundgren. And that is hardcore.

Here's Dolph looking for someone to break.

And then I saw the movie and realized that it had its priorities completely whacked out, and instead of Jet Li, Jason Statham and Sly killing everything that moved, we got roughly an hour and a half of action stars monologing. It was a yak-fest with the same plot as the new "Rambo," except with more people and less action. And as much as I love these guys, let's face it, forming words with their mouths is not top on the list of things most of them are good at. Now, ask them to drive their fist through the brain-pan of a bad guy and they're all over it, but that other thing is just asking a lot.

That's not to say "The Expendables" was a bad movie. It just could have been so much more. And fortunately it would not be an exceedingly difficult fix to pull off. All they would have to do is cut way, WAY down on the talking and just have these guys do what they do best: Kill Things. That and have Bruce Willis and Schwarzenegger in it for longer than 2 minutes. That's all it would take.

I have to tell you, it's quite the nice surprise when a franchise comes along that recognizes the problems of the first film, and instead of repeating them fixes everything that was wrong. "The Expendables 2" was superior to the first film in nearly every possible way you could have it be superior.

Pictured above: Fixing problems.

The first thing I have to praise it on was how much better filmed the action was in this film than it was in the first one. The first film had action that was lit way too dark, was edited way too choppy, and filmed in such nauseatingly close and incomprehensible shaky-cam that it was borderline amateur. "The Expendables 2," in contrast, has the camera (usually) pulled back far enough to see everything, is kept only minimally shaky, and has shots that last for longer than 14 milliseconds. It's still very intense but far less frenetic, making it seem wild and brutal but always in control, like a laser guided missile shot right down a chimney.

And while there is time spent on a bit of character, mostly on Liam Hemsworth's character of Billy, it doesn't overstay it's welcome. It's generally the same amount of character development you'd get in an 80's action flick, which generally equates to being able to recognize their particular stereotype, if they're close to retirement, and whether or not they have a girl waiting for them back home. Those last two, by the way, are pretty good indicators on their chances of dying. If the answers are both "yes," I wouldn't advice them to step outside without wearing at least 7 bullet proof vests and a tank.

As a result of this "down to business" attitude that "The Expendables 2" has, it succeeds in being what the first film was trying to be to a far greater extent, and what it's trying to be is an old school 80's action movie. That's why it cast a bunch of 80's action stars. The pacing, the large amount of action, the humor, and it must be said, the cheesiness comes through gloriously. The only thing that really makes it not seem like an actual 80's action flick is CGI blood and the lack of keyboard in the soundtrack. Other than that, this could be a double feature with "Delta Force" or "Red Dawn."

So the action was great, which means that it wasn't disappointing, but the real attraction here is the cast. Of course it's got some of the greatest action movie heroes ever the grace the screen. Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li and Jason Statham are amazing. And then there's Randy Coulture and Terry Crews. They are not the greatest. Honestly, if you wanted to cast wrestlers, I would have gone with Rowdy Roddy Piper, but that's just me. Crews and Coulture do their jobs I guess. I just still am trying to figure out what they're doing here.

Of course the exclusion of Mickey Rourke sucks, but he didn't really have much to do in the first movie anyways, so his absence isn't felt too much. Instead we have a LOT more Bruce Willis and Arnold, which I was hoping for so hard since their 2 minute cameos in the first film wasn't nearly enough. True, they're not in a majority of the film but they do come back for the final battle and provide some of the best moments in it.

Seriously, this is one of the greatest things I've ever seen. It is glorious.

But everyone was talking about only 2 people: Jean-Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris. I'm going to talk about both, but with varying degrees of detail.

Van Damme plays the bad guy in this, and it is amazing. I'll come right out and say it, I loved him in this movie. And it was almost to the point where during the final confrontation during him and Stallone, which was a very good fight by the way, I gotta say I was almost routing for Van Damme, not because Stallone was bad but because Van Damme was so freaking awesome. I think it had less to do with his character, because it really was a nothing character, and more to do with how completely badass he is while doing it.

It takes a true villain to pull of sunglasses like that.

And like any Van Damme movie there is much entertainment to be had from hearing "The Muscles from Brussels" butchering the English language like a hog. One of the reasons I love Van Damme is listening to him putting emphasis in the most bizarre places within words. My friends and me were laughing close to tears as he sneered and said in his very Belgian way "Dew nawt chall-AN-ge me." I instantly knew that was a new catch phrase for us to abuse. And that is why you get Van Damme.

It's best if you didn't know that much about the Chuck Norris role going into it, because let's face it, the whole thing is essentially a joke, and you don't want to ruin the punchline. The only reason he's in this movie is because his fame on the internet is legendary to such a mythical extent that I'm not sure if it's praise or mockery. Maybe a bit of both. And yes, his role is essentially that of an indestructible walking stereotype to the point where they actually make a "Chuck Norris Fact" joke, but it's perfectly in line with everything else going on. And like everything else, it was badass.

And yes, the "Chuck Norris Fact" joke is pretty damn funny.

The only thing Chuck did to that car behind him was pee in the gas tank.

Honestly, there were only a few problems I had with "The Expendables 2." The first one was that Jet Li is in it for all of 25 minutes. If that. I don't know if he only had a week to film or something, but he's out of there pretty damn fast. That was a disappointment.

Also, this is probably the absolute worst introduction in an action hero movie I've ever seen. Usually there's a dramatic reveal, or a big explosion followed by a closeup and a snarky one-liner. Look at any random Bond movie. They know how to unveil the hero. In any case, there needs to be at least a little bit of a buildup and tease to get the audience invested a little bit to show that the movie is at least trying to get you excited. "The Expendables 2" literally just cuts to Stallone and company driving towards an enemy base. No buildup, no reveal, no tease. Just straight cut to Sly driving a truck, wearing some really silly goggles. Pretty weak intro.

Lastly, while I was glad Arnold was in it a lot more, there were 4 occasions in this movie where I face-palmed, and they were all due to one liners involving him.

Now, don't get me wrong. One-liners as said by Arnold Schwarzenegger get me more excited than any heterosexual man has the right to be, but these just did nothing for me because of the fact that none of them were new. They were all recycled, and that just isn't cool. This film has him making an "I'll be back" joke twice. They also use the phrase "terminate" in regards to Arnold. And I'm pretty sure there's a "Total Recall" reference there, too. Oh also, he says "Yippie Ki Ay." Because you know, that was in "Die Hard." Which he wasn't in. It's just so lazy.

"Sorry. Have to SPLIT!!!" See? It's not that hard.

All I'm saying is that if you get the undisputed Heavyweight Champion of the World for Action Movie One-Liners in your movie, give him one liners! Don't have him recycle the old ones! That's boring! Thinking up bad puns and one-liners is not that difficult. Thinking up immortal classics like "See you at the party, Richter" or "Enough talk!" is, but it's not that hard to crank out a C+ quip. That's why you have Arnold, because he can take that and turn it into an A-!

That aside, this is exactly what I was hoping it was going to be. It was a big, dumb, absurdly fun action movie harkening back to the 80's. We can only hope that "The Expendables 3" will get made, because after the disappointing first film, it seems they've found their formula. Now they just need Reb Brown!

THE BOTTOM LINE - I really liked "The Expendables 2." For action packed awesomeness with a dream team of action gods, this is the money right here. Props to everyone involved for improving on the first film in every possible way. Recommended.