Cynical Cinema

This is the tagline for A Force of One, a Chuck Norris movie from 1979:  “He hears the silence.  He sees the darkness.  Only he can stop the killing.”  That isn’t even a joke.  I didn’t take it off the Chuck Norris list website.  It is really printed on the cover of the DVD, just like that. 

My thirteen-year-old step son has just discovered that Chuck Norris stuff on the internet.  You know, “Chuck Norris doesn’t sleep.  He waits.”  And, “Chuck Norris’ tears can cure cancer.  Too bad he’s never cried.”  And such like.  So he asked to see a Chuck Norris movie.  And I realized that with the exception of Return of the Dragon and Burn Hollywood Burn, I had no Chuck Norris movies at all.  The first is a Bruce Lee movie that happens to involve Chuck Norris in the climactic fight scene, and the second is just a poorly done comedy where Norris stars as himself.  But I didn’t have what could reasonably be considered a “Chuck Norris Movie”.  Like Missing in Action, or Missing in Action II.  Or, Missing in Action III.  I’m not sure what else he did.  I don’t like Chuck Norris.  I’m a Seagal man.  In fact, I’m not sure Norris has worked in years - last I saw, he was backing Mike Huckabee for the Republican presidential nomination, starring in infomercial reruns, and basically existing on that list on the internet, which was funny one year ago but really irritating now.

So when I saw A Force Of One for just six bucks at Rogers Video, I decided to experience Chuck Norris, just one more time, with my curious step-son.  I warned him ahead of time.  You know those Seagal movies that I watch a lot?  This might actually be worse.  But he has (through me, I think) developed a similar appreciation for irony to mine, and loves a truly bad movie almost as much as I do.  So we were very excited for this film.  Chuck Norris, you see, is a…karate expert…of course.  He needs to teach the cops how to fight, because a serial killer is knocking them off.  And there are drugs somehow involved, and eventually, his adoptive son is killed by the mysterious karate-expert serial killer.  This is so he can go on a vengeful tear, which of course culminates with the big final fight scene between the two karate fighters.

But here’s the thing - A Force of One wasn’t bad enough.  It mostly made sense.  It featured some average acting performances from the supporting cast.  The fight scenes were halfway-decent.  This was not what we wanted!  We wanted terrible!  Local-car-commercial-level acting!  Nonsense plot!  Inane dialogue!  A false sense of it’s own excellence!  The earmarks of Seagal fare.  But no.  This movie defied all odds and made a little bit of sense.  It was difficult to make fun of A Force of One.  Sure, there were cliches and idiocies, but not nearly enough.  And so the movie just became boring, and that made me sad.  Both of us, in fact.  We wanted abysmal.  Oh well, better put on Alone In The Dark.

But then - wait!  I checked out, on a whim, the special features.  And there it was!  A documentary on American Cinema, the company that put this movie out!  And it was all about - how “American Cinema”, the company, changed Hollywood and the movie industry in general.  And they were serious!  And here it is - this is how they changed Hollywood forever - they made a star out of Chuck Norris!  This was not tongue in cheek, it was totally serious, THIS is what the movie itself should have been.  Totally inflated with an undeserved sense of self-importance.  But even with this gem of a special feature, this DVD is still not worth six bucks.