Invasion U.S.A. (1985)

Invasion U.S.A. (1985)

 

Starring: Chuck Norris, Richard Lynch, Melissa Prophet, Alexander Zale, Alex Colon, Eddie Jones, Billy Drago, James Pax
Director: Joseph Zito
Action Director: Aaron Norris

More than the Missing in Action films, Invasion U.S.A. is the most masculine Chuck Norris action flick of them all. This was his entry ticket into The Expendables franchise. Arnold had Commando and Predator. There was Die Hard for Bruce Willis. Stallone had Rambo: First Blood, Part II and Rambo III. For Dolph Lundgren, it was Red Scorpion. Mel Gibson got in on the strength of the Mad Max and Lethal Weapon movies. This is the movie where an entire army of Soviet (and Cuban) terrorists invade the United States, set off both a race war and the sort of anti-authority protest that followed the George Floyd riots, push the country to the brink of societal collapse, and the only man who can stop them is Chuck Norris, working entirely on his own.

The movie begins off the coast of Florida, where a refugee boat is floating aimlessly after its motors have died. Before long, they run into a Coast Guard vessel, whose captain welcomes them into America. As the refugees are cheering for their good fortune, the Coast Guard captain shoots one of them in the head at point blank range and orders his men to massacre everybody else, including little boys. We then discover that the purpose of the bloodbath was to get a hold of the Cuban cocaine that someone had smuggled aboard. The next day, authorities discover the trawler floating off the coast with several dozen dead bodies stuffed into the galley.

The “captain” of the Coast Guard boat is Mikhail Rostov (Richard Lynch, of Dragon Fury and Cyborg 3), a Soviet terrorist who has big plans for the “decadent” United States. First, he has to acquire an absurd amount of guns, which he does using the cocaine he has acquired. But just to show us how EEEE-vil he is, after completing the deal, he shoots the arms dealer (Billy Drago, of Cyborg 2 and Delta Force 2) in the crotch and rams a coke straw up the nose of the dude’s girlfriend before throwing her out the window.

Although both the FBI and the local police don’t really know what’s going on, the C.I.A. does. One of their agents, Adams (Martin Shakar, of The Children and The Dark Secret of Harvest Home), heads out to the Everglades to find retired agent Matt Hunter (Chuck Norris). Hunter now lives in a shack at the edge of the swamp with his pet armadillo, doing manly things like catching alligators and stuff. Adams informs Hunter that Rostov is back, but Hunter doesn’t want to back in the game. “I had the chance to kill him and you didn’t let me. Now he’s your problem,” Hunter growls.

Well, it will soon be Hunter’s problem. You see, Rostov has been plagued with nightmares of Hunter kicking him in the face. I swear I’m not making this up. So, much to the chagrin of his comrade, Nikko (Firefox’s Alexander Zale), Rostov leads an assault on Hunter’s swamp shack. They blow up the place and kill his Seminole(?) friend, John Eagle (Dehl Berti, of Wolfen and the late 90s TV series “Werewolf”). So now Chuck is ready for action.

The same goes for Rostov and his men. Using 40-year old landing craft that they somehow acquired legally, Rostov and Nikko sneak in a hundred or so terrorists into Miami and then spread them out all over the city. They start blowing up houses in the suburbs, dressing like cops and opening fire on parties at Hispanic community centers, committing acts of arson in black neighborhoods, etc. Basically, they do everything to erode Americans’ trust in the authorities and in each other, allowing Media coverage to spread that distrust and incite race-based attacks and violence against the government all over the country. In other words, the Soviet bastards are using our own freedoms—including the Freedom of the Press—against us. Thankfully, Chuck Norris and his two-fisted Uzis are on the case!

Yep, this is the film where Chuck Norris fires hundreds of rounds from his mini-Uzis, which he carries like a pair of six-shooters, before having to reload. This is the movie where we learn that rocket launchers are perfect for close-quarters combat. This is the movie where Chuck Norris can remove a bomb attached to a bus full of school children (when it has 10 seconds left before detonation) and catch up to the bad guys in his manly pick-up truck and throw it inside, and still have time to drive to safety. This is the film where the events leading up to the hero getting involved with the conflict get kicked off by the main villain dreaming about getting face-kicked by Chuck Norris! In short, Invasion U.S.A. is Chuck Norris Facts: The Movie, made two decades before that even was a thing!

Further making this movie memorable are some of the dastardly villains of all time, before Sylvester Stallone one-upped them with his Burmese warlords in John Rambo. The Commie terrorists in this movie massacre Cuban refugees by the dozen. They plot to blow up both churches and school buses. Richard Lynch’s Rostov has this thing for killing men by shooting them multiple times in the crotch! The dude has a blast firing RPGs into random houses…on Christmas Eve! Have you ever seen a more absurdly over-the-top depiction of the evils of the U.S.S.R. than that? They also have a Japanese terrorist, Koyo, played by James Pax (the Lightning Elemental from Big Trouble in Little China). I like to think that Koyo was a member of the "Red Bamboo" from Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster.

If Missing in Action was Chuck Norris’s Rambo: First Blood, Part II and Missing in Action 2 was his The Deer Hunter, then Invasion U.S.A. is his Red Dawn. But he doesn’t need months of strategy and guerilla warfare to defeat the Enemy. Just give him a pair of sub-machine guns, a hunting knife, and a pick-up truck and he’ll send the Ruskies back Mother Russia…in pieces.