Disc Reviews

The Delta Force Blu-ray Review

• 7th May 2014

In the 1980s Cannon were responsible for a whole host of action films which followed in the wake of the Rambo films. The starting point would be to write a script with a high body count and usually starred the likes of Chuck Norris and Charles Bronson. Cannon was led by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus and there would mearly always be a political message in the films (albeit a right wing one). The Delta Force (1986) has to be said is one of the better films. Sporting a support cast that would not be out of place in an Irwin Allen disaster film and co-starring such legends as Lee Marvin beside Chuck Norris was a shrewd move (despite that Marvin’s role was intended for Cannon regular Bronson).

The Delta Force opens with a mission and the heroic Norris saving his buddy from a burning helicopter and the elite force on their way back home. From the opening shots we can see that wooden Norris is cast in type as a cigar smoking maverick who will always put his buddies first who will never leave a man behind. Jump forward a couple of years and Lebanese terrorists hijack an American ATW (TWA?) commercial aircraft about to leave Athens International Airport heading for Rome. With just two terrorists (the other was not allowed on the flight as he was arrived too late) they take over the plane and the cabin at gunpoint with a stash of grenades ordering the captain to fly the plane to Beirut with all hostages on board. A call from the Pentagon through to the elite crack team of Delta Force re-commissions Norris back to the team promptly fly straight off to the Middle East. The problems are made worse on the plane as many of the passengers are Jewish and one couple Israeli. These passengers, along with a couple of serving US Navy divers are singled out and treated differently. In one of the most dramatic moments in the film the German airline stewardess (Hanna Schygulla) screams at the terrorists that she cannot do this because she is German making the link between modern Jewish politics and those earlier in the 20th Century. Can Delta Force save the prisoners before they are executed by the terrorists from behind enemy lines in Lebanon?

The hijacking itself is based off the 1985 TWA Flight 847 which received much publicity with the interview with the captain from the cockpit at gunpoint (one scene highlights this). The first 2/3 of the film keeps up the tension with better than normal production values for a film of this type (Chuck Norris in the Missing in Action films for example). By the time the action finally comes round it descends into the normal jingoistic action with plenty of bullets flying round, pyrotechnics and motorbikes armed with rocket launchers. Negating any sense of reality for action that is neither barely plausible nor convincing (but very typical of this type of film) with a more than irritating jingo electro score by Alan Silvestri this is never the less better than the usual and the right choice for Arrow Video to release. Also on the disc are documentaries about Chuck Norris, as well as an interesting one about the history of Cannon Films. As ever this is a good package from Arrow and the picture is crisp perfect in Blu-ray, Arrow once again being able to raise the profile of lesser and cult films to arthouse.

Chris Hick