Silent Rage (1982)

SILENT RAGE (1982) ***
Michael Miller’s 1982 feature Silent Rage combines several American movie hallmarks into one barely coherent package: Chuck Norris, a small Texas town (never sleepy when Norris plays Sheriff), a madman killer, mad scientists, shots borrowed straight from John Carpenter’s Halloween, two love scenes, Stephen Furst basically playing his character from Animal House again, bar fights, roundhouse kicks, biker gangs, breasts (inc. Norris but not Furst), and a schizophrenic musical score, not in any particular order.

We also have at least five wildly different acting styles for the price of one. We’ve already covered Norris and Furst, then there’s Ron Silver and he’s playing it straight in easily the best dramatic acting that one can find in anything starring Chuck Norris. Silver plays the voice of reason and let’s do the right thing scientist, whereas his colleagues played by Steven Keats and William Finley are variants on Universal horror archetypes updated for a new generation. Keats, of course, wants to push science further than any one ever before even when it’s not prudent and Finley, best known for his roles in Brian De Palma and Tobe Hooper films Phantom of the Paradise and Eaten Alive, occupies the middle ground between Silver and Keats. Brian Libby’s madman killer continues in the proud screen tradition of Frankenstein’s Monster and Michael Myers, especially after our mad scientists flat out turn him posthumously into an indestructible killing machine whose stalking does all the talking. I wanted Dr. Loomis to show up and say THIS ISN’T A MAN. Bummer that it didn’t happen.

Norris battles the mad killer and later the virtually indestructible mad killer in the opening and concluding scenes. Otherwise, he alternates between mentoring and supporting unsure and unsteady rookie cop Furst, rekindling his romance with a former lover played by Toni Kalem, and questioning Silver and Keats. For Norris fans, apparently the scariest parts of Silent Rage involved Kalem’s bare breasts and Norris favoring jazz music because our favorite roundhouse specialist returned to only love scenes between men for the rest of his career, barring his rolling around in the mud with the sultry Barbara Carrera in the 1983 Walker, Texas Ranger precursor Lone Wolf McQuade. I for one like Silent Rage because it’s nice to see more chests on display than just Chuck’s for a change.

Silent Rage unfortunately drags at two main points. The death of Silver’s wife literally feels like it takes forever, like one of the filler killings in a Friday the 13th sequel. Ditto for the bar fight, which are drags both in real life and in the movies. A couple moments in this otherwise humdrum bar fight sequence redeem it, just barely though. If you’ve seen Silent Rage, you know exactly what I mean.

The poster for Silent Rage rates with Breaker! Breaker as the best Norris film poster. There’s really no arguing with a mini-Norris roundhouse cracking the movie’s title and the promotional hype Science created him. Now Chuck Norris must destroy him. He’s an indestructible man fused with powers beyond comprehension. An unstoppable terror who in one final showdown, will push Chuck Norris to his limits. And beyond.

Once upon a review, I believe I wrote that I wanted to see Chuck Norris vs. Jason Voorhees and Silent Rage is the closest that I will ever get to seeing that dream come true.

Good Guys Wear Black (1978)

GOOD GUYS WEAR BLACK

GOOD GUYS WEAR BLACK (1978) Two-and-a-half stars

The late Steve McQueen gave his friend Chuck Norris some advice for his motion picture career. McQueen said that Norris talked too much in GOOD GUYS WEAR BLACK and that, in the future, he should let his supporting actors do more talking, since it would have the effect of making what Norris says more important.

I quoted McQueen in a review of A FORCE OF ONE, Norris’ third feature. McQueen’s right about GOOD GUYS WEAR BLACK: Norris does talk too much and he should have allowed his talented supporting cast more of an opportunity to carry the speaking.

Norris stars in GOOD GUYS as John T. Booker and there’s Anne Archer as Booker’s romantic interest and smaller roles for James Franciscus, Dana Andrews, and Jim Backus. It is especially nice to see Andrews on the screen, because we remember him from classics like LAURA and especially THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES. Backus deserved better, especially since, all things considered, he probably enjoyed C.H.O.M.P.S. more than what he did GOOD GUYS.

Because I saw the later film before the earlier one, GOOD GUYS’ plot reminded me of the 1985 Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle COMMANDO. Booker’s surviving Vietnam War comrades are being systemically eliminated five years after the first scene in the movie when they survive a death trap set for them. We have a shady diplomat on the verge of becoming Secretary of State, who is blackmailed into pursuing the elimination of the Black Tigers, the elite group of CIA assassins headed by Norris’ Booker. This plot was written on the back of a much larger napkin than COMMANDO.

GOOD GUYS, like A FORCE OF ONE, exists as middle-of-the-road Norris, not quite as inspired as his best films CODE OF SILENCE and LONE WOLF McQUADE, but still better than his starring debut BREAKER! BREAKER! and THE OCTAGON, his fourth picture.

CODE OF SILENCE and LONE WOLF are his best pictures mainly because they have the best supporting casts. They also have their fair share of exciting moments.

I mean, who could ever forget that classic scene in LONE WOLF when David Carradine’s treacherous villain buries Norris alive in his super-charged Dodge Ramcharger. After coming to and pouring beer on himself, Norris and his Dodge rise up out of the ground and he gets out and guns down several of Carradine’s anonymous henchmen. Capping it all off, Norris tells his young partner to get him a beer. Epic.

There’s just one scene in GOOD GUYS that even approaches that great LONE WOLF scene.

Booker faces down an assassin, who just blew up the plane carrying Archer’s reporter character and Booker’s romantic interest Margaret, and eventually Booker takes out this formidable foe with a flying kick through the bad guy’s windshield as he attempts to run over Booker. This moment alone is worth the price of a rental or a more long-term purchase, and it could play as the front end of a highlight reel with LONE WOLF.

Unfortunately, the rest of GOOD GUYS does not live up to that incredible flying kick, reportedly performed by Norris’ brother Aaron, but it still has a certain value, especially in seeing Norris portray a college professor and a race car driver in addition to being a cold-blooded assassin. Boy, that Norris sure could do anything.

NOTES: In 2017, a 22-year-old John T. Booker, from Topeka (Kansas), was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his vehicle bomb detonation attempt at Fort Riley. Booker wanted to kill American soldiers and assist the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) in their fight against the United States.

There’s also a Dr. John T. Booker who’s an Associate Professor of French at the University of Kansas. His teaching and research focus on the French novel of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Kansas seems to have the market cornered on the John T. Booker name.

Breaker! Breaker! (1977)

BREAKER! BREAKER!

BREAKER! BREAKER! (1977) Two stars

We all have to start somewhere, as they say, and Chuck Norris fittingly started his true movie career with BREAKER! BREAKER! (We’ll ignore WAY OF THE DRAGON, because Norris plays a villain defeated by Bruce Lee.)

Well, BREAKER! BREAKER! is not a very good movie: Norris himself admitted that he had no idea what he was doing, it was made on an extremely low budget ($250,000) and looks it, its plot defines simplistic and leaves no room for shades of grey, and it’s a time capsule of the 1970s.

Whether or not that’s good or bad, I will leave for you to decide.

Hairdos, that music, arm wrestling, greasy diners, truck driving vernacular and CB radio lingo, and high flying karate with or without slow motion.

Yes, it all screams 1977.

BREAKER! BREAKER! only needed child custody and it could have predated OVER THE TOP by a decade.

Film’s alternate title: ROUNDHOUSE! ROUNDHOUSE! Believe you me, Mr. Norris unleashes one roundhouse per every minute of the film’s running time. Keep in mind that his feet have to catch up between the dialogue scenes.

Thinking about it a little bit longer, I believe I know where I’ve seen BREAKER! BREAKER! before: John Sturges’ 1955 classic BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK, when Spencer Tracy’s one-armed war veteran runs into Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine, and just about every Black Rock resident.

BREAKER! BREAKER! is a dumbed-down BAD DAY AT BLOCK ROCK (which also predated FIRST BLOOD) and director Don Hulette is definitely no Sturges, whose other credits include GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, and THE GREAT ESCAPE.

The plot: Truck driver J.D. Dawes (Norris) warns his younger brother to stay away from Texas City, a California municipality rather hostile toward truckers. Judge Joshua Trimmings, Sergeant Strode, Deputy Boles, and seemingly every Texas City resident in cahoots run a brutal racket and they rough up one of Dawes’ friends, hence the warning to the younger brother. Well, of course, the younger brother does not stay away from Texas City and older brother springs into action to rescue younger brother and bring down corrupt Texas City. You can fill in the rest.

BREAKER! BREAKER! could play as part of a marathon with DUEL, SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT, and CONVOY or merely a double feature with the far superior BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK.

NOTE: The poster for BREAKER! BREAKER! gets four stars.