Film Review: INVASION U.S.A. (1985, Joseph Zito)

Stars: 2.8 of 5.

Running Time: 107 minutes.

Notable Cast or Crew: Directed by Joseph Zito (MISSING IN ACTION, THE PROWLER).  Written by James Bruner (THE DELTA FORCE, MISSING IN ACTION), Chuck Norris, and Aaron Norris (HELLBOUND, DELTA FORCE 2).  Produced by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus.  Music by Jay Chattaway (VIGILANTE, MANIAC, SILVER BULLET).  Cinematography by João Fernandez (DEEP THROAT, DEADLY WEAPONS, CHILDREN OF THE CORN, FRIDAY THE 13TH PART IV, WALKER TEXAS RANGER).  Starring Chuck Norris, Richard Lynch (SCARECROW, THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER), Melissa Prophet (CASINO, GOODFELLAS), Eddie Jones (A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN, C.H.U.D.), Billy Drago (THE UNTOUCHABLES, DELTA FORCE 2), and James Pax (BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, KINJITE: FORBIDDEN SUBJECTS).

Tag-line: "No one thought it could happen here...  America wasn't ready...  but HE was!"

Best one-liner:  "If you come back in, I'll hit you with so many rights, you'll be begging for a left!"

Is INVASION U.S.A. a good movie?  No, no it is not.  Today, I suppose it reads more like a post-election Tea Party fantasy, but back in the 80s I guess it was for the set who thought "I would have loved RED DAWN if it had been about one guy in tight denim with dual uzis instead of a teenaged guerrilla army."

Granted, "that guy" is Chuck Norris, but what I'm saying is: RED DAWN it ain't.  There are a lot of things that go wrong here– it's generally bland and doesn't have the mind-blowing action movie moxie of a DEATH WISH 3 or a STONE COLD, Chuck Norris doesn't do much in the way of martial arts and is offscreen way too often, and the supporting cast is pretty weak (the two Cannon character actors I was all psyched to see, Billy Drago and James Pax, get about a combined 2 minutes of screentime).  As far as Norris flicks go, I think I'd even have to put this one below THE HERO AND THE TERROR and SILENT RAGE.  It's even three or four steps down from DELTA FORCE 2: THE COLUMBIAN CONNECTION.

Mind the mud!

But– before you go throwing yourselves off of balconies– this is still a Norris/Cannon picture, and as such there are a handful of things that should tickle the fancy of any conoisseur of 80s trash nonsense.

"Let the fancy-tickling commence:  I'll bring the beard!"

Starring Richard Lynch as a communist-terrorist-mercenary

who wants to invade America because  we don't value our freedom enough ("They are their own worst enemy, they don't realize how we can use their freedom against them!"), INVASION U.S.A. sees Lynch proceed to "Monsters on Maple Street" the country, sowing mistrust and violence.  He expends a great deal of his resources on blowing up Chuck Norris' cabin and frightening his pet armadillo, shoots a drug-dealin' Billy Drago in the balls and tosses a hooker out the window, executes some kids making out on the beach, shoots up a Latino community center, and then heartily fucks up suburban Christmas with blasts from a rocket launcher during "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing."  Did I mention that this was sort of a Christmas movie?

"Daddy, can I put the star on top?"


FOOOOOOSH

I gotta say that the filmmakers do do a pretty good job of straight-up destroying Christmas.  But then, in a most egregious mistake, Lynch & Co. blow up a mall in the midst of holiday rush.

Ya don't mess with Reagan-era consumerism when Chuck is around, that's for sure.  And what did DEATH HUNT teach us about property rights?  Don't fuck with a man's cabin.  That's a big mistake.

And fuck with Norris' cabin they did.  They also needlessly scared the daylights out of this cute little guy:

the aforementioned pet armadillo, who might actually be my favorite element of the film.

Although, perhaps the biggest mistake they really made was killing off Drago.

This may have marked the beginning of a beautiful friendship (Drago also appears with Norris in THE HERO AND THE TERROR, DELTA FORCE 2: THE COLUMBIAN CONNECTION, and the WALKER, TEXAS RANGER episode "Terror in the Night") but he really only gets about sixty seconds to slither in and creep everybody out and say "Impress me" like he's Tom "Thrill me" Atkins in NIGHT OF THE CREEPS

before this happens

and then Lynch crams the coke straw of Drago's number-one-lady up into her sinus cavity and then tosses her out the window for good measure.

I'm not really sure what the purpose of all this was except to add some sleaze to the picture and to associate communism with American drug culture/prostitution?

Well, if you have any questions, you'll just have to ask the writer:


Yeah, Chuck just broke a bottle of Coors with his fist because he was so angry at the thought of having his artistic acumen undermined.  Well, that angry-bearded scribe brings us some rants against Social Security and the line "They're turning people against each other... even worse, they're turning them against authority!"  And it's a major plot point that all of this is happening because Norris didn't execute Lynch back when he had the chance:

Though he did kick him in the face.

And he also brings us yet another in a series of Chuck Norris characters with first names for last names:  Matt Hunter.  Also see:  Scott James, John Booker, Sean Kane, Josh Randall, etc., etc.

There's a weak plucky journalist character (Melissa Prophet- though supposedly Chuck's first choice was Whoopi Goldberg) who makes up for lack of character development by loudly calling everybody "Bozos!" and "Bastards!"  James Pax shows up impersonating a cop as he guns down partygoers at a Hispanic community center:

this guy shows up, too, the sort of ridiculous tank-top body-builder who's always wandering around Cannon Films for some reason:


and then there's a fairly great scene where Norris is threatening/propositioning Lynch via live television:

"One night you're gonna close your eyes..."

"And when you open them..."

"I'm gonna be there..."

Anyway, it gets pretty damn dull in stretches, and I think it might be because it was one of Cannon's biggest budgets (at $10 million) thus far.  Therefore, I theorize, they wanted to show it off with lots of shots of trucks driving and soldiers assembling and crowds running and tanks driving around instead of shots of street dancers and spandex'd henchmen and chicken being good and all.  I think Cannon wanted to make a "real" movie, and for that reason it loses a little of its charm.  Not all of it– not even close– but some.

Anyway, it practically redeems itself with an abrupt finale involving bazookas which recalls another Cannon film abrupt finale involving bazookas from 1985, DEATH WISH 3.  You see, Chuck and Richard Lynch are in a hallway with bazookas, sort of cruising each other


when this happens

in all of its UNNNNNNNNNNNNNN-YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH glory.  Roll credits.

At least you knew how to go out with a bang, INVASION U.S.A.– I'll give ya that!

-Sean Gill

Film Review: THE PROWLER (1981, Joseph Zito)

Stars: 2 of 5.
Running Time: 89 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: SFX by Tom Savini, Starring Lawrence Tierney (RESERVOIR DOGS, DILLINGER), Farley Granger (STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, THEY LIVE BY NIGHT), Vicky Dawson (ABC AFTERSCHOOL SPECIALS).
Tag-lines: "It will freeze your blood."
Best one-liner: "Hey, who turned off the band?"

THE PROWLER's a mediocre 80's slasher with some spectacular, eye-popping gore FX by Tom Savini. But in a decade where the bar for teenage horror has been set so high (NIGHT OF THE CREEPS, NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, PHANTASM II, etc.), mediocre doesn't really cut it. The butchery and bloodshed are indeed squirmingly realistic, but I couldn't give two sh*ts about the plot or characters. So, though THE PROWLER's gore might be more accomplished from a technical standpoint, in retrospect, I found myself recalling more readily scenes from MANIAC! or DAY OF THE DEAD, where the gore helped move the story along- not the other way around. Now the film does build a palpable nighttime atmosphere and has a killer that's kind of like Tom Berenger in PLATOON + Jason Voorhees, but I'm kinda bored with this.

Director Joseph Zito went on to bigger and better things with FRIDAY THE 13TH PART IV and a tenure as one of Cannon Films' artists in residence (MISSING IN ACTION, INVASION U.S.A., and he was supposed to helm the scrapped Golan-Globus SPIDERMAN), but this slasher here is so 'through the motions' (especially so for 1981, long before the genre became stale) that it's immensely disappointing. Still, I would ordinarily be giving this three stars for the immaculate carnage and pitchfork swingin' G.I. (not to mention the double-barreled shotgun blast to the face that clearly inspired a similar scene in WILD AT HEART),

so why only two? Well, let's see. At the beginning of this film, I was promised a leading role from classic Hollywood mean drunk and all-around tough guy Lawrence Tierney. Instead, I get nearly no Tierney at all. I got more Tierney in SILVER BULLET. So I gotta take a star away.

And, let's face it, you're getting off easy- Tierney would have broken a bottle over your head or something. Two stars.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: MISSING IN ACTION (1984, Joseph Zito)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 101 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Director Joseph Zito (THE PROWLER, INVASION U.S.A.). Starring Chuck Norris, M. Emmet Walsh (CRITTERS, BLOOD SIMPLE), James Hong (BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA). William Sanderson (BLADE RUNNER, DEADWOOD) was supposed to play the M. Emmet Walsh part, but turned it down. Features an original song by Ice-T.
Tag-lines: "The war's not over until the last man comes home."
Best one-liner: "Damn right!"

First off, this is not a RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II (1985) rip-off. RAMBO (which had, literally, 20 times the budget) is a MISSING IN ACTION (1984) rip-off. (Well, unless you subscribe to the account that Cannon read Cameron's treatment for RAMBO and rushed MIA into production in order to preemptively rip it off. But who would believe that? Cannon is like the classiest company ever.) People loved MISSING IN ACTION, and it became Cannon's highest grossing endeavor.

Chuck ended up collaborating with his buddies at Cannon nine times over the course of the next ten years.

The magically jaw-dropping plot is this: Norris tags along on a diplomatic trip to Vietnam, just so he can sneak away and free some POWs that these godless commie bastards have been smugly keeping for no reason whatsoever, other than that they're just a vindictive, duplicitous race of people that don't deserve to shake your hand, not ever.

Chuck's Braddock is so audacious that he makes Rambo look like Casper Milquetoast. Rambo is tortured by his memories. Rambo cries. Braddock walks a straight line through this movie from start to freeze-frame finish. Never changes, never questions, never wavers.



But it's the little (Golan/Globus) touches that really make this work: Viet Cong bringing megaphones into battle so they can taunt American G.I.s, Norris karate kicking a TV, a man shot as he gives the thumbs-up, James Hong (Lo Pan in BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA) as a slimy villain who lowballs Braddock by saying HE's the war criminal, Ice T's techno (!) beats that play incessantly throughout all Bangkok scenes, a bulletproof dinghy, and crabby acting legend M. Emmet Walsh as Braddock's greasy old war buddy!

The film has a fairly odd sense of humor (or lack thereof), as well– situations normally played for laughs are presented in an odd, matter-of-fact manner. For example, Chuck's Thai cabbie (actually a Vietnamese assassin) tries to kill him, so Chuck strangles him and escapes the cab. Immediately thereafter, a Thai couple enters the cab and gives him an address. The camera lingers for a moment, and then we cut back to Chuck without any resolution, not even their discovery that their cabbie is dead. Typically, it would be a couple of over the top American tourists getting in the cab, saying some ludicrous one-liner, and then being surprised by his corpse, but here the sense is one of vague concern, as if 'Oh, well, I guess those people aren't going to get to their destination.'

Chuck tools around Saigon killing people, dressed in black- this may as well be a Cannon ninja movie.

His idea of negotiating is to aim a gun at you with a blank expression on his face. At a cocktail party he orders a beer, no glass, then insults some dignitaries. When he blows up the camp, we see the greatest explosions in Golan/Globus history (though, to be fair, I think it's one awesome explosion filmed from several different angles and shown repeatedly). Perhaps the coup de grace is Cannon working in a Thai hooker singing, basically a cappella (with minimal accordion accompaniment), Rod Stewart's "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?" Yeah, this is pretty terrific. Four stars.

[Side note: in his hotel, Norris watches a SPIDERMAN cartoon marathon, foreshadowing the ill-fated Cannon Spidey movie, designed to be helmed by MISSING IN ACTION director Joseph Zito.]

-Sean Gill