Often credited as Norris’s best film, one should therefore not be too surprised to learn of its director, Andrew Davis. Davis would go to bigger and better projects shortly after, leading up to his Academy Award nominated The Fugitive in 1993 and the 1998 Dial M for Murder remake, A Perfect Murder. He is a director that understands both style and pacing, capable of impressively ratcheting up tension any number of ways.
There are two ways by which one can watch and analyze director Menahem Golan’s The Delta Force. Both are worthy insofar as they put the film into context and help to explain what it does and how it tries to accomplish its aspirations. In neither instance however does the film get away scott free from, at times, head scratching decisions, other times ones that will easily make some viewers even feel rather dirty, and finally decisions that are just plain laughable, albeit in an enjoyable way.
The funny thing about the movie is the way it begins, namely, with a bang, but one hinting that the filmmakers have something slightly more intellectual in mind that the run of the mill B-grade action flick. Missing in Action’s opening sequence is a well filmed, smartly edited chase sequence in the Vietnamese jungles back during the war.
What proved the saving grace to the careers of these action stars – and also a way to turn the self-caricature, normally a loss, into a win – ended up getting bigger than just any one of them. It gave them a moment of relevance to get some action films of theirs made, but it won’t last long.
The Expendables 2 Written by Richard Wenk and Sylvester Stallone Directed by Simon West USA, 2012 Of the myriad problems with the horrifically tedious first instalment of The Expendables, one of the most prominent was the incompetent execution of its action sequences. Prone to an absurd cut frequency, confusing spatial relations, terrible CGI blood effects …
Although he was born in Berchem-Sainte Agathe, Belgium, with the name of Jean-Claude Van Varenbeerg, Van Damme once called himself “Frank Cujo” when he first moved to Hollywood in 1981. When he couldn’t find work as an actor the former European Professional Karate Association’s middleweight champion decided to take English classes while working as a …