Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection

Let me put it forward. I didn't think all that much of the original, and that's exactly the same on this one. However for some enjoyable, light-headed entertainment it passed the buck for me, compared with the first outing. The two films couldn't be anything but different though. The first featured heavily on political terrorists, as this one plays out more like a comic-book revenge story with the drug cartel in his sights. Even though he's still apart of 'The Delta Force', this time Norris goes it alone, and tackles South American drug lords led by an impressively juicy and vicious Billy Drago bad guy performance of utter evilness and slime. Norris' personal, easy-going turn, is less mechanical to his first showing of the McCoy character.

Now this one was full-throttle from the get-go, and looked like it had a sizable budget. The gritty action is furious, and at times unpleasant. Just look at some of those remarkably creative stunt works involving an intense rock climb and thrilling sky dive. Some of the potent camera work neatly dons some sharp angles, and works in the jungle locations to great effect. There are explosions. Big ones. Numerous ones. Norris is that hard to kill, that they use a grenade launcher to stop him. Alas with no prevail. And you gotta love the inter-cutting slow-motion. Aaron Norris (yep Chuck's brother) directs by throwing caution to the wind, and while it's not first-rate handling and freshly organised. He demonstrates enough to keep you watching, and lets it tick along. The material is the real weak point. The bloated screenplay is covered with coincidences, and dialogues are fairly leaden. The rest of the performances are a can of worms. John P Ryan gleefully hams it up as Gen. Taylor and Richard Jeckal skews in as a determined DEA Agent. The beautiful Begona Plaza is appealingly good too.

I was expecting worse of this sequel. Pure tempo-laced b-action fun, where the cold stare of Drago steals the show.

I do not know how you can not say that this is a good movie. Chuck Norris is not supposed to be a realistic actor...his soul purpose is to be cheesy and take it up the gut everytime against the bad guys. So yeah, he is invincible to bullets, but aren't all good guys? And on top of that, he uses the total gym which makes him even more all powerful. You better watch out buddy, cuz Chuck is coming for ya...

I'm not sure why "Delta Force 2" gets such a bad rap. Is it just because it's a sequel? Or is it because it was the film that came out just at the point when Chuck was transitioning from feature films to Direct-To-Video and Television?

In fact, is it really a "bad" film at all? Well, yes and no—depending on what your expectations are. For instance, is DF2 a bad film when compared with Norris' other films? Definitely not! This film is the pinnacle of the latter day Norris persona. He's the superconfident, superbearded superman of action, tough and gruff but also noble and likable. He a man of few words who shoots a lot of big guns, narrowly escapes a lot of very big, very orange explosions, and doles out justice to the bad guys with no second thoughts. (as a sidenote, this is very different from the early days Norris persona—a basically peaceable karateman pushed into action, often the pursued instead of the pursuer; sometimes he was mustachioed, sometimes his face was (gasp) naked.). The story is clichéd and the characters are clichés personified, but I don't think that was an accident. Cliché can be very effective in movies if used properly (see "Rocky"). DF2 pushes all the buttons—pushes them in all the right spots and pushes them hard. It doesn't try to be ironic, self-referential, a parody, or a "reimagining" of anything. Like a John Wayne western, it just is what it freaking is.

Is DF2 a good film in the B-Action film genre as a whole? If by that we mean the Bronson/VanDamme/Segal level genre, then the answer is another resounding "yes!" DF2 is an excellent example of the kind of simple action flick that no one makes for theatrical release anymore.

Is DF2 a good action film if your tastes run exclusively to higher budgeted, more elaborate action flicks like "Die Hard," the James Bond series, "Lethal Weapon," Tarrantino flicks and the like instead of lower budgeted action melodramas? Nah, no way in hell. In comparison to the $100 million action epics, the acting in DF2 is stiff, the action too basic, and the story style outdated by decades. Compared to the big studio tentpole Summer blockbusters, all Norris films are like home movies. To me personally, however, the line between these big budgeted action flicks and Chuck's is becoming thinner and thinner as time goes by (what at first seems like innovation soon becomes just another cliché as it is imitated by everyone everywhere, a la "The Matrix").

So—Delta Force 2. Good movie? The answer's either "hell yes!" "good lord, no!" depending on who you are.

Personally, I dig it.

This movie has very little in common with the first movie, the only real connection between the two is Chuck Norris is in both of them. That and the movie does involve the Delta Force once again. It is also a very unmemorable movie as there are very few scenes in this one that I can recall. While I remember the older movie Delta Force almost entirely and I did not exactly watch that one a whole lot more. One of the few scenes that I even remember is the scene involving the Delta Force doing a sky jump with the drug lord and the fact this film had a bit of a similar plot to the James Bond film "License to Kill", however that film is superior to this one as I can remember a lot about that one too. I do not remember this one being particularly horrible or anything, I just remember it not being as good as the original and that I got a bit bored during this film, another thing that did not occur during the first film. In the end I think it is just one of those sequels that uses the success of the first film to try and market an almost unrelated film. Like this one was supposed to have Chuck in some sort of drug task force, but they thought they could get some more bucks by making it a sequel to the Delta Force movie.

The original Delta Force was a classic. There was no surprise when its sequel was greenlit. However, if the rumours on the internet are to be believed, it suffered from numerous rewrites and had plenty of people with different ideas as to how it should play out. Not only that, but actor, Lee Marvin, died during parts 1 and 2, therefore taking him out of the entire sequel, obviously.

So, we're left with the square-jawed baddie-killer, Chuck Norris, all by himself, packed and ready to take on the next wave of faceless henchmen and thugs.

And he does okay. It's hard to put your finger on exactly what's missing from the second Delta Force. On the surface everything appears to be there: Chuck, action, fight scenes, outrageous stunts, explosions, evil bad guys - it's all there. But, despite it all, there still feels like there's something missing.

This time, instead of Middle Eastern terrorists, we have Columbian drug lords (who follow every stereotype of South American cultures ever) who have kidnapped a load of DEA agents and, not only that, but they've only gone and murdered Chuck's best friend and his family. Hence Chuck better dust his beard down and kill absolutely everyone he meets. Which he does.

It's all good harmless fun (if your definition of 'harmless fun' is 'killing thousands of people in gruesome and fiery ways), but, for some reason, definitely feels lesser to its predecessor. If you enjoyed the first, you'll probably enjoy the second, too. But, if you're new to the franchise, I'd advise checking out the first one before you sit down to this.