Starring: Chuck Norris, Jennifer O'Neill, Clu Gulager,
Ron O'Neal, Bill “Superfoot” Wallace, Eric Laneuville, James Whitmore Jr., Clint
Ritchie, Pepe Serna, Ray Vitte, Taylor Lacher, Lisa James, Chu Chu Malave
Director: Paul Aaron
Action Director: Chuck Norris, Aaron Norris
Chuck Norris’s follow-up to his success with the conspiracy thriller Good Guys Wear Black was something a little more typical of what we may call the “martial arts genre.” While that film featured some limited martial arts, they were not in and of themselves part of the story. One might suppose that Chuck’s fighting abilities in that film had been part of his Special Forces training regimen, nothing more, nothing less. A Force of One, on the other hand, is a martial arts movie, true and through.
The idea is that the inclusion of martial arts is what pushes the story forward. Karate is what gives this film its unique identity. In Good Guys Wear Black, you could replace the fisticuffs with guns and still have the exact same film. You could say the same for Breaker! Breaker!: if Chuck Norris spent the entire film laying out rednecks with “Mississippi Haymakers”, the film would more or less be the same—if a little less entertaining. In A Force of One, remove the karate and you do not have a movie, just a half-developed succession of cop-vs-drug-dealer clichés.
The movie opens with a pair of policemen observing a skateboarder (played by, amusingly, a guy named Guy Messenger), who is known to be a courier for the local drug trade. They watch him enter a sporting goods store with an envelope and leave with a jacket in tow. That night, the two men sneak into the store and start looking through the jackets, only to discover that drugs are being hid inside the lining of the coats. Before they can report their find, a mysterious figure in black pops up and beats the men to death with his bare hands.
When their bodies are discovered on the other side of town some time later, the local narcotics squad is baffled by the method of execution. One of them, Detective Amanda Rust (Rio Lobo’s Jennifer O’Neill), comes to the conclusion that only a karate expert could bust a person up internally like that. She goes to see a local karate instructor, Matt Logan (Chuck Norris), to get his input on the matter. While initially reluctant to get involved with the investigation, he eventually takes it upon himself to teach self-defense to the local narcotics squad.
Some time later, two more detectives are offed in a similar manner and Logan gets a little more involved. Him and his adopted son, Charlie (Eric Laneuville, best known for his work on television), start checking out all the local martial artists, especially those involved in the tournament circuit. Meanwhile, Amanda begins to suspect that there might be somebody on the inside working for the enemy.
See what I said about this film depending on the martial arts? The movie it set entirely in an alternate reality that exalts the martial arts community: the good guys know karate; the bad guys know karate; getting a prominent job in the drug trade is determined by your level of fighting skill; and it is supposed that only one karate master will ultimately be able to defeat another—guns be damned! There is also an anti-drug message and an observation about corruption on the force, but it is all in service of setting of situations where people can beat each other up with a well-placed face kick.
Chuck Norris fits more into the role than he did in his previous film. He still has his everyman, blue-collar feeling to his acting, and his limited talents are served by both the familiarity of the character to the real-life Chuck Norris and the relatable anti-drug message. Most of the other actors play their parts well, including veterans Ron O’Neill (of Superfly fame), Clu Gallagher, and James Whitmore. The weak link in the cast is Jennifer O’Neill, who is almost just as wooden here as she was nine years prior in the John Wayne film Rio Lobo, her earliest role as leading protagonist.
The action is once more handled by Chuck Norris and his brother, Aaron. The fighting is decent, although once more American filmmakers are at a loss on how to photograph it. Too many times does the camera focus on a character who is throwing punches or kicks directly into the camera, especially from a close-up. This keeps us the viewer from understanding the spatial relationship between the person performing the move and his opponent, and it does not allow us to appreciate the full beauty of the physicality of the move. The camera also is ill-placed in showing moves from unflattering angles, which also takes away from the action. The fights—most of which occur in tournament settings—feel more realistic than your average synchronized display of Hong Kong acrobatics, but they definitely lacking in terms of presentation.
Chuck Norris is his usual dependable self in his fights. Norris tends to favor more economical punches and kicks to the flashier moves. Once in a while, he performs something like a standing jumping front hook kick, or a jumping spinning back kick, just for effect. For the most part, his character sticks to the basics, albeit the basics performed with strength.
Complementing Chuck is Bill “Superfoot” Wallace, in his first film role. Wallace had studied both judo and shorin-ryu karate during the 1960s, and rose to fame in the tournament circuit during the mid-70s. While initially participating in point-fighting matches, Wallace soon graduated to full-contact karate—which allowed leg kicks—and enjoyed a 23-0 record before bowing out in 1980. Wallace was known for his fast footwork, which gets something of an exercise here. He performs a lot of double roundhouse kicks, unleashing a pair of kicks at head and chest level without lowering his leg. An earlier tournament fight allows him to show off his infamous hook kicks, which won him notoriety in the ring in real life.
While we do have real talent in the fights, the big finale between these two bruisers of the martial arts world—both real and onscreen—is a short disappointment. The two square at it in the ring before duking it out for real on a mountain road. While they are evenly matched at first, Chuck Norris really goes for the blood in the second half of the climax and dominates the fight. Fans looking for better showcases of Wallace’s skill might also check out the Hong Kong version of the Jackie Chan police thriller The Protector. As American martial arts films were still establishing an identity in 1979, it would be wrong to judge the film too harshly: It’s probably the best American example of the genre of that particular year. But with Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Lau Kar-Leung, Hwang Jang Lee and the Venom Mob doing the impossible in Hong Kong at the same time, A Force of One showed that Hollywood still had ways to go.
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