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 America gets invaded for the first time and only "one-man army Matt Hunter" can take care of business. Hunter is referred to as "America's doomsday weapon" and the movie itself is called "stirringly patriotic." 1985, 110 minutes, Widescreen DVD
Attention dirtbag terrorists! This invasion will be fought in a pair of tight blue jeans, frequently unbuttoned denim shirt, and with a pair of Uzis that conveniently hang from a shoulder harness at the ready for whenever you animals refuse to answer questions, try to blow up churches, school buses full of innocent kids, and entire shopping malls. Oh yeah, it will also be fought by just one man! Ah, but you son of a pigs are probably saying in your ugly, thick, Russian accent, "he ees just von man, alone! Vat can he do?" Cruising the dirty, mean streets of a Miami under siege by foreign vermin like yourself in his beat up old black pick up truck (and you better freaking believe that it's American made, a-hole!), Matthew Hunter manages to stumble onto every major terror attack you brutal thugs attempt! So, you want to try to tear this great country apart, Nikko? Give it your best shot, because it's 1985 and back then we had a one man Department of Homeland Security named Chuck Norris!
Written off by Commie sympathizers as some right wing paranoid wet dream when it first came out, Invasion U.S.A. now stands out as a cautionary tale about what can happen to a country when it's people go as soft as a president after a visit from a portly intern. Watching this movie over and over again, while humming the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and breaking down and cleaning my arsenal that stands between my family and the encroaching liberal agenda that would seek to force me to speak some foreign language, marry my own brother, and send my step kids to public schools that are more interested in showing my girls how to put a rubber on a banana than in how to make a good moist banana bread. (Does the teachers' union think that we're going to be able to get any good banana bread once our U.N. masters force us to export all our crops to the Third World?) makes me hang head in shame as I mutter softly, "why didn't we heed your call to arms, Chuck?"
There isn't any point in beating myself up over my lapse in vigilance though. Chuck's selection of south Florida as his primary battleground pretty much caused his message to be lost in its delivery. If there's three states that real Americans would gladly give back to Mexico, France, or Lithuania or wherever, it would be California, Texas, and Florida. Why do you think we haven't dumped Fidel or at least sent in a strike force of barbers after him? Because we're secretly hoping that he sneaks in and steals Florida from us! Just like we're impatiently waiting for the Big One to drop California into the Pacific Ocean and just like we're waiting for the ghost of Santa Ana to take back his precious Alamo (it would be nice to have a little advance warning though so we could relocate the Dallas Cowboys, being that they're "America's Team" and all). If these scumbags had been invading someplace, like, I don't know, my mountain compound in Idaho or someplace like that, it would have seemed a little more imperative to sit up and take notice. As it was, I just figured that Chuck was busting his hump down in Miami against these guys to work up a good sweat before heading north to defend us real God-fearing Americans living in the Heartland.
Things begin innocently enough out on the open sea when a bad guy named Rostov and his band of hired killers massacre a boat load of Cuban refugees so that he can score the drugs hidden on the boat. He uses the drugs to leverage his way into getting a bunch of guns and invasion related gear from some other guy and it isn't long before all these World War II era surplus army troop transport ships are landing on some isolated beach where a fleet of innocent looking trucks, vans, and semis await to haul the hundreds of mercenaries all across the country so that they can begin sowing the seeds of chaos amongst us. The depths of depravity that exists in these guys is revealed when second-in-command Nikko kills a couple of kids making out on the beach and stops to watch their portable TV which is showing a late night talk show with guest star Phyllis Diller. You'll feel your blood run cold as you see Nikko laughing at Phyllis' inane jokes! Were these guys born without souls?
But where is Chuck during all this? Nikko's camped out on a beach somewhere waiting for the Top Ten List and there's not a snug pair of Wranglers in sight! Chuck is back in the Everglades living out the American Dream. He wrestles alligators with his Native American friend, John Eagle, jokes about John Eagle bilking the government by running an airboat business (we also see he has a restaurant later on) while pretending to be retired and collecting social security, and moans about John Eagle inviting him over to eat frogs for dinner again. And yes, as soon as you see easy going old timer John Eagle, you immediately realize that he's about to become easy to kill short timer John Eagle. Good gravy! These hooligans even kill our token injuns! Is there no symbol of American pride they won't attack!
Chuck is approached by a government agent who tells him that the Company wants him back for an assignment to take out Rostov and his men. (Surely you guessed that Chuck isn't just some ordinary alligator farmer? Sometimes when you're tired of wrestling with your past, the only way to forget is to wrestle with big, mean reptiles.) Chuck declines initially, but once Rostov and his men show up at his house, blow it up with some of the infinite number of rocket launchers and bazookas featured in the film, kill John Eagle, and even disturb Chuck's poor pet armadillo, Chuck suddenly has an opening in his busy schedule to take out Rostov. Of course, the Company will have to deny all knowledge of Chuck's operation, because you know, can you imagine the public outrage if it ever got out that we sent our best agent and only remaining hope to combat the terrorists?
This is more than a simple mission for Chuck. It's personal! Actually, it's bit more personal for Rostov since he's the cry baby waking up in a cold sweat after having a nightmare about the last time he and Chuck tangled. Somewhere in a foreign land Rostov was all set to fire a rocket launcher (trust me - if you like these shoulder fired rocket launcher things and/or bazookas, this will become your favorite film) into some government building where the American ambassador is visiting when suddenly Chuck appears decked out in all in black and pointing a gun at Rostov's head. Instead of smoking him like a pack of cools (it's a low down dirty shame that I can't remember what movie I cribbed that line from), he just kicks him in the face (and you know he's as tough as they come when he shows a guy mercy by just drilling a guy in his skull with his boot). I suppose it was also personal for Chuck what with Tonto scattered across the swamp, but Chuck didn't even take his armadillo with him!
Chuck heads out to look for Rostov and manages to drive down the weirdest street in Miami. As he drives by he sees first a group of black guys shouting stuff at him. The next block features hookers screaming and fighting. Further down this street a white biker gang tries to attack his car. I won't lie to you, as Chuck impassively observed all this stuff, you could almost hear him thinking "why exactly am I saving this country again?" Chuck arrives at his destination which turns out to be bar where an old buddy from his Company days is hanging out and he gets a lead from him as to Rostov's whereabouts (Chuck does have to remind the guy that he saved his ass down in South America though before getting his info).
If you enjoy stuff blowing up, tons of gunfire, car chases, and mouthy woman reporters, the rest of the movie is pure bliss. If all of that just sounds like a cacophony of crud to you, then you need to scoot on back behind the Iron Curtain, Ivan! You'll find this difficult to doubt, but the movie does have its weak points and I'm not about to gloss over them at the cost of my credibility as unbiased movie reviewer/patriot. First off, this mouthy reporter is pretty nasty looking. The movie compensates for this by rarely featuring her and giving her lines such as "do something, you shit!" when she's being held hostage by Nikko and she's imploring Chuck to save her. In spite of her potty mouth, Chuck does the right thing and somehow materializes right next to them and blows Nikko's head off, before walking off back to his truck as this woman continues to berate him. Sorry babe, can't hear you over my Ford.
The movie also seemed to be a bit flexible in its portrayal of just how fast and how far the country has collapsed into chaos. On the one hand, even though it's only been a day or so, there's already food shortages and people are sending their kids off on school buses to some "safe place in the country" (Don't be sending your bratty big city kids to the Heartland, you rich bastards!), but on the other hand there's still guys working road construction, filling potholes and cutting down weeds along the shoulder of the very highway the school bus full of kids is driving on. There's little time to ruminate on the dedication of our Department of Transportation employees though because the terrorists have driven up alongside the bus and attached a bomb to it! Not to be outdone, Chuck drives up to the school bus, grabs the bomb and instead of just heaving it into the woods, speeds ahead of traffic and catches up with the terrorists. He deposits the bomb on the hood of the car, delivers a witty comment like "I think you forgot this" and drives off while the bad guys get blasted to smithereens! Now, that's how you fight a War on Terror!
Chuck wraps up the war when he tricks all the terrorists into attacking a single building in downtown Atlanta, only to have the U.S. Army surround it with a bunch of tanks and troops once they are all inside looking for Chuck. Chuck and Rostov have a mano-a-mano showdown that comes down to a battle of rocket launchers and/or bazookas (naturally), the movie ending with Chuck's biggest catchphrase "time to die" ringing in our ears. And it was only ringing in our ears because he barely had any other lines in the movie. Maybe it was just his Company training, but Chuck didn't seem to get real worked up about anything either. He does have a scene at a blown up carnival where he gets worked up by telling someone that for every terrorist event he stops, a hundred more just like it succeed. And by getting worked up, I mean he's not using his Uzi on someone or saying "tell Rostov that I'm coming and that it's time to die!"
Rostov is played by Richard Lynch (The Sword And The Sorcerer) and looks like Rutger Hauer's less-expensive brother which is probably why I spent the whole movie thinking his name was Wulfgar since that was Rutger's terrorist handle in the Stallone-Billy Dee Williams flick, Nighthawks. The reason for Rostov's invasion remained as murky as his strategy (I get how you could convince religious fanatics to go on suicide missions against an entire country, but how do you get any paid mercenary worth his salt to sign on with a hundred guys to take on the entire United States military on its home turf?) and the movie could have benefited if Chuck had wrapped things up about twenty minutes earlier (was it really necessary for us to watch Chuck while he was laying around his hotel room watching Earth vs. The Flying Saucers?) when he was taking a break from battling Rostov) , but isn't this a bit like complaining that you don't like ice cream because too much of it gives you a headache? And the scenes where he stabs a guy in the hand and leaves him holding a grenade in the other hand, drops a suitcase bomb on a group of terrorists, and blows up a helicopter with a - all together - rocket launcher? That would be the chocolate topping, nuts, and cherry on this sublimely sullen sundae of superpatriotic swagger.
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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