Tag: Globus

The Delta Force (1986)

THE DELTA FORCE

THE DELTA FORCE (1986) Three stars

Watching THE DELTA FORCE for the first time in 30 years, it surprised me in three ways.

First, it accumulates a running time of 2 hours, 5 minutes.

Second, the heavy action does not kick in until about 1 hour, 15 minutes in.

Third, it’s more thoughtful than expected, given that it is a Golan-Globus production starring Chuck Norris and featuring a cast of many highlighted by hostages Martin Balsam, Joey Bishop, Lainie Kazan, George Kennedy, and Shelley Winters, actors who initially suggest the movie would quickly become AIRPORT ‘86.

About that running time, let’s see here, RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II and COMMANDO, both from 1985, clock in at approximately 96 and 92 minutes, respectively. Then again, Norris’ previous cinematic crusade against terrorism, INVASION U.S.A., lasts 110 minutes.

Once the action does kick in, it kicks in real good in THE DELTA FORCE and it especially delivers the goods with shit blown up real good just like an old school action movie should. Of course, I hope the demolition experts were paid real good.

The action truly begins with a chase: Major Scott McCoy (Norris) and his Delta Force colleague are pursued by Lebanese terrorists through Beirut and one terrorist vehicle crashes into a poor defenseless fruit cart and melons fly everywhere. Ah, yes, this is one of the better fruit cart scenes in history because they used both slow motion and big melons. I say the bigger the melons, the better the fruit cart scene.

I have argued the best Chuck Norris movies are the ones with the best supporting casts and THE DELTA FORCE definitely upholds that argument. Other cast members include Robert Forster, Hanna Schygulla (it’s a long way from Rainer Werner Fassbinder melodramas to Chuck Norris action spectaculars), Susan Strasberg, Bo Svenson, and Robert Vaughn. The great Lee Marvin (1924-87) also plays a key role in his final movie performance. Of course, Marvin brings his association with THE DIRTY DOZEN.

This is Norris’ best supporting cast, though I still rate THE DELTA FORCE slightly below LONE WOLF MCQUADE and CODE OF SILENCE overall.

Palestine born Menahem Golan (1929-2014) wrote, produced, and directed the film, which takes an undeniable pro-Israeli, pro-Jewish position. Golan served in the Israeli Air Force as a young man, long before he and his younger cousin and business partner Yoram Globus attempted to conquer the international film market.

Call me a fool and slap me silly, but it seems that Golan paid a lot more attention and dedicated more craft to THE DELTA FORCE than the average run-of-the-mill Cannon production, like, for example, Norris’ other 1986 film, FIREWALKER. Granted, J. Lee Thompson directed that one, but it’s doubtful that Golan would have evinced any passion in a watered down third-rate Indiana Jones retread like he did for THE DELTA FORCE.

THE DELTA FORCE ripped its plot from the real-life hijacking of Trans World Airlines Flight 847 on June 14, 1985. There’s a real-life Delta Force who have engaged in Operation Eagle Claw, Operation Enduring Freedom, the Iraq War, Operation Inherent Resolve, and Operation Kayla Mueller, among many other specialized missions incorporating counter-terrorism, hostage rescue, and direct action.

THE DELTA FORCE began production in July 1985 and filming in September 1985. The shoot lasted until early November. The filming took place in predominantly Israel. THE DELTA FORCE opened February 14, 1986, 245 days after the hijacking.

We have about the same number of passengers and crew members in the movie as in real life, the same number of terrorists behind the hijacking, a purser based on flight service manager Uli Derickson, the singling out of the Jewish passengers and the Navy divers and the eventual murder of one of them, and a similar flight pattern.

In real life, though, diplomats brought about the release of the hostages, not the Delta Force. Of course, that’s not what anybody wants to see in an action movie. I mean, you don’t cast Chuck Norris and Lee Marvin for that.

THE DELTA FORCE can be a wish fulfillment fantasy particularly for those who feel the United States perpetually takes a soft position on international terrorism and that we should go right into the heart of the Middle East and “Kill all the A-rabs” once and forever. Never mind that all our prior and ongoing efforts in the Middle East have seemingly only compounded matters and created more terrorists. One just might be left to conclude the War on Terrorism will never end, just like the War on Drugs.

The Arab characters in THE DELTA FORCE, terrorists one and all, earned their place in Jack G. Shaheen’s book “Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People.” Vincent Canby of the New York Times wrote, “[DELTA FORCE] will be the 1986 film all others will have to beat for sheer, unashamed, hilariously vulgar vaingloriousness.”

Subaru customized a motorcycle just for Norris’ late picture heroics. Gene Siskel wrote in his one-star review for the Chicago Tribune, “The action in Beirut is more appropriate for a bad James Bond film than for a subject that has been all too real lately. Norris gets off shooting rocket launchers from his specially built motorcycle, and we sit there stunned at the movie industry’s ability to make money off of any tragedy.”

Israeli filmmaker Rafi Bukai said that he hated films like THE DELTA FORCE because they do not show Arabs as human beings.

Veteran character actor Robert Forster (1941-2019) plays the main terrorist Abdul Rafai. Forster was born in Rochester, New York, to parents of Italian, English, and Irish descent. His father trained elephants for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. File this casting alongside John Wayne as Genghis Khan in the 1956 THE CONQUEROR. Along this same line, how many ethnicities and nationalities have character actors like Alfred Molina and Armand Assante played over the years?

I give THE DELTA FORCE a positive review because I enjoy it as a big, dumb, and even stupid action movie and it is an effective time capsule piece with Golan-Globus, Cannon Films, Chuck Norris, Lee Marvin, and all those older character actors. Not because it is a sobering, thoughtful, and balanced consideration of Middle East politics and international terrorism. Thankfully, I have read several books just like that on those subjects.

Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films (2014)

ELECTRIC BOOGALOO, THE WILD UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS

ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS (2014) Three-and-a-half stars
There’s bad movies and then there’s movies released by Cannon Films.
Cannon became one of the most productive motion picture studios in the 1980s, known for producing schlock on an epic scale.
You might remember Cannon from their productions SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE, THE DELTA FORCE, MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, BLOODSPORT, OVER THE TOP, KING SOLOMON’S MINES, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2, THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN, and, of course, BREAKIN’ 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO.
Once upon a time, I believe I wrote that cousins and Cannon heads Menahem Golan (1929-2014) and Yoram Globus were never responsible for a “good” film.
It sure does seem that way at times with their Cannon canon, but I might have been guilty of practicing a little bit of hyperbole. Never. And it’s not like Cannon was never guilty of the same.
I watched many of these films growing up and thus, I watched ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS with a certain nostalgia.
I’ll take a bad film produced by Cannon over many, many good films. They’re never ever boring, unlike so many prestigious prize winners over the years.
For example, I’ve never considered OVER THE TOP a good movie in any traditional sense, but it’s always been great fun watching this incredible cinematic train wreck that combines “arm wrestling, child custody, and truck driving” into a macho soap opera for the ages. See, your regular bad movie would not take on all three of those subjects and play them full tilt. Child actor David Mendenhall mugs so heavily that I check my wallet every single time I watch OVER THE TOP and his emotional moments with Stallone are so cringe worthy.
Anyhoo, ELECTRIC BOOGALOO is filled with many, many nuggets of juicy information.
— Golan honestly believed that Brooke Shields would win an Academy Award for her performance in SAHARA. Come on, are we talking about the same Brooke Shields, one of the worst actresses ever to disgrace the screen? SAHARA marked the last Cannon picture that MGM distributed; MGM called it “Dry as the Sahara desert … it was awful.” During his review of the 1985 Chevy Chase and Dan Akyroyd comedy SPIES LIKE US, Gene Siskel mentioned that he watched the film while he was on vacation in Hawaii and that Hollywood studios should show him a movie every time he’s on vacation in Hawaii because he’d like anything … then he remembered that a year-and-a-half before, he saw SAHARA in Hawaii and it nuked his see-a-movie-in-Hawaii-and-like-it theory.
Rather than winning an Oscar, Shields instead became the first and so far only actress to win both Worst Actress and Worst Supporting Actor (“Brooke Shields (with a mustache)”) at the 1984 Razzies.
— Cannon wanted “that Stone woman” for their RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and ROMANCING THE STONE rip-off KING SOLOMON’S MINES.
Golan meant Kathleen Turner, star of both ROMANCING THE STONE and JEWEL OF THE NILE, but instead “that Stone woman” was interpreted to mean Sharon Stone, who had a limited filmography at that point in her career.
Seemingly everybody hated Stone during the production.
Legend has it that crew members pissed on Stone’s bathtub in her trailer.
Stone said that her contribution to both KING SOLOMON’S MINES and the sequel ALLAN QUATERMAIN AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD was her bad hairdo running through the jungle. She took work on POLICE ACADEMY 4: CITIZENS ON PATROL next to have some fun after the stress of both King Solomon films and her divorce.
Here I thought it was a chance to work with both Brian Backer and Billie Bird (1908-2002).
— SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE is one of the worst super hero movies of all-time and rates with JAWS THE REVENGE as the worst third sequel released in 1987.
This is a film where the IMDb trivia is infinitely more interesting than the final product.
For example, the SUPERMAN IV entry begins promisingly, “Christopher Reeve publicly regretted his involvement in the film. He stated, ‘SUPERMAN IV was a catastrophe from start to finish. That failure was a huge blow to my career.’”
The special effects on the picture are shoddier than probably anything you’ve ever seen, as Cannon slashed the budget by $20 million during the film’s production.
Another juicy bit from the IMDb, “Christopher Reeve’s flying harness was concealed under a larger version of the red shorts he wore for the costume, making his waist look bigger. In previous SUPERMAN movies, the bigger waist was hidden by the cape, quick cuts, or creative camera angles. In this movie, the bigger waist is clearly visible, leading some reviewers to speculate that the thicker waist was Reeve’s actual waistline.”
You could say SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE rates a 10 on IMDb, if you add 6.3 points from the trivia section to the 3.7 score the film earned after 39,268 votes.
You could also say that Cannon had no business making pictures like SUPERMAN IV, would-be blockbusters that proved to be dead in the water.
— ELECTRIC BOOGALOO reminds (or informs) one that Cannon took chances on John Cassavetes’ LOVE STREAMS, Andrei Konchalovsky’s RUNAWAY TRAIN, and Jean-Luc Godard’s KING LEAR, for example, respectable films coming from a studio not known for respectability.
— Overall, taking in the wide (and wild) variety of films produced by Cannon, everything from break dancing to ninjas and Michael Dudikoff to Chuck Norris and Bronson to Indiana Jones rip-offs, you might be tempted to conclude — like I do — that yesterday’s bad movies are sometimes better than today’s good movies.
— ELECTRIC BOOGALOO itself surpasses all of the Cannon “classics” in entertainment value.