Eric’s Bad Movies: ‘The Delta Force’ (1986)
It was inevitable that I would do a Chuck Norris film at some point in the “Eric’s Bad Movies” series, and today is the day! I made perhaps the obvious choice, “The Delta Force,” about terrorists and Jews and motorcycles. The sequel is almost certainly worse, but I figured this one was bad enough. Please to be enjoying my analysis, over at Film.com.
May 15th, 2008 at 11:02 am
I saw Delta Force 2 and I don’t remember it being that bad. Of course, I was 13 at the time, so my idea of a good movie wasn’t completely accurate. I’m confused though, is this movie supposed to be a comedy or a serious action movie?
May 15th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
“But as it turns out, Lee Marvin mostly just stands around, occupying his time by being very old and having vast, unkempt eyebrows” made me laugh so hard, I almost peed my pants. Thanks Eric!
May 15th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
I know I say something similar after every “Eric’s Bad Movies” entry, but I can’t help it: I just love these things.
May 15th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
I have a real awful image of GW in a spiderman suit fighting the IRAQ war single handedly…I couldn’t laugh the rest of the article.
May 15th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
“It makes you think: if airport security was really this lax in the ’80s, why weren’t more planes hijacked?”
Um…more planes were hijacked in the 80’s. Lot’s more. Cripes, at one point in the 80’s it seemed like there was a plane a week being hijacked. Billy Joel even included a line about it in the 1/2 verse devoted to the 1980’s in “We Didn’t Start the Fire” (okay, Billy Joel ain’t exactly A. J. P. Taylor, but still…).
On a lighter note, “Firewalker” is another classic bad Chuck Norris film. Roger Ebert notes that Lou Gossett is more excited by a treasure map than by the actual treasure - probably because the camera pans too close at one point and it becomes evident that some of the “treasure” is tupperware coated in gold spray paint.
May 15th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Yeah, but why weren’t there even MORE hijackings than there were? As easy as it was in those days, it seems like every single flight should have been commandeered.
May 15th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Oh, come on. Like we’ve never heard of spontaneous generation.
May 15th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
I have the dubious honor of being the first person to make a Chuck Norris joke in the comments. Eric, you’d better watch your back, because Chuck Norris is going to hunt you down and give you a roundhouse kick to the face for making fun of his movie.
May 16th, 2008 at 5:17 am
Commandeering an aircraft was a simple matter for decades. In the Sixties, it seemed like there was a plane a week being hijacked to Cuba. A passenger, presumably a Communist, would pull a gun and demand to be taken to Havana. At Jose Marti Airport, he would deplane and get arrested. Then the plane would take off again for its original destination. I remember a college friend in 1969; her boyfriend was flying in from Miami, and she was worried he’d be diverted.
May 16th, 2008 at 6:26 am
“Al-Qaeda is hunted down by Spider-Man.” I would totally see that film.
Great line. And review.