Yet another “action” movie whose action sequences mostly consist of people standing still, yelling, and firing machine guns. The same kind of inert sequences you see in something like Rambo: First Blood Part II. It’s definitely an 80’s thing, where just the idea of soldiers shooting dozens of rounds a second was enough to give your red-blooded male action movie audience a chubby. I thought the ludicrous premise of an army of terrorists invading America would sustain a film like this comedically but, a few deliciously paranoid conservative moments aside (“They don’t even understand their freedoms. WE WILL USE IT AGAINST THEM.”), it really squanders the idea. To be fair it’s probably an over-ambitious plot for a film budgeted like this, so it ends up playing mostly as a series of vignettes in which Chuck Norris (who co-wrote the film, based on a story by his younger brother, so I guess the whole Norris clan is nuts) fucks up terrorists’ days. They want to blow up this church of decent, God-Fearing, white American people but wascally Chuck Norris sabotaged their bomb and blows them up instead! Wash, rinse, repeat.
This was the first Chuck Norris movie I ever watched and I still don’t think I have a good handle on what his persona as an action star was. He mostly just seems quiet and bearded. In this he’s even kind of off-putting and creepy, as a man whose sole reason for existing is to whisper ever so gently in the head terrorist’s ear “It’s time to die.” There’s a reason gay jokes and modern ironic appreciation of 80’s action movies always go hand in hand. You kind of wish the two would just bone and get it over with. D+
Martha Marcy Nash and Young 