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The Delta Force (1986) More at IMDbPro »

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108 comments in total

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18 out of 28 people found the following comment useful :-
Since Norris is on his motorcycle, the action is intense, sweaty, and fast.., 25 January 2004

Author: ironside (robertfrangie@hotmail.com) from Mexico

Few countries in the world have not suffered from terrorist violence over the past three decades... Domestic and international terrorism is now at the top of the agenda for most nations...

Experts agree that there is almost always a strategy behind terrorist actions... Whether it takes the form of bombings, shootings, hijackings, or assassinations... Terrorism is neither random, spontaneous, nor blind; it is a deliberate use of violence against civilians for political or religious ends...

Terrorist acts are often deliberately spectacular, designed to rattle and influence a wide audience, beyond the victims of the violence itself... The point is as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said at the Pentagon one day: "Terrorism must be vigorously opposed and soundly defeated wherever it exists."

The Delta Force was secretly created in October 1977 by US Army colonel Charles Beckwith in direct response to numerous, well-publicized terrorist incidents that occurred in the 1970s.

The number of terrorism attacks was at its highest in mid-1980s... Palestinians have long been associated with terrorism, including suicide bombings against Western targets and kidnappings in war-torn Lebanon during the 1980s...

Menahem Golan's 'The Delta Force' is inspired by the 1985 hijacking of TWA, which featured the famous footage of the plane's pilot leaning out of the cockpit with a gun to his head... The film opens with two fanatic terrorists taking over an American airliner bound from Athens to Rome and New York, diverting it to Beirut...

With no other option, the Pentagon decides to send the 'Delta Force' into the area for an emergency rescue operation...

Colonel Alexander (Marvin) is given the go ahead, and his elite team - specialized in rapid infantry assault, night fighting and airfield seizure - led by Major McCoy (Norris) energetically meets the terrorists...

Since Chuck Norris is on his motorcycle, the action is intense, sweaty, and fast...

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14 out of 22 people found the following comment useful :-
good for the first half, cheesy for the second, 26 June 2003
Author: shakey_jake53 from Toronto, Ontario

THE DELTA FORCE is an odd movie. The first hour of the film is a well written and directed portrait of an airline highjacking. The music is tense and the performances are solid (especially Robert Forster as the head terrorist). Then, when Chuck and Lee show up, the film turns into a patriotic cheesefest where the delta force whips out the terrorists along to cheesy 80s patriotic pop music. The film definitely goes down from here. The director should've realized that the first half was tense and realistic and decided to keep it that way, even if they were going to have the delta force take out the terrorists. I really dont know why they changed the mood of the film so much, because if they had'nt, this could've been an excellent actioner. The second half is still somewhat enjoyable and very unintentionally funny, but those who think that the second half of the film would be as gripping as the first will be disappointed. 3/5

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12 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :-
Norris' best Golan-Globus effort, 30 May 2004
Author: Wizard-8 from Victoria, BC

Lee Marvin was already very ill when he appeared in this movie, and his grave condition sometimes shows onscreen. Still, he's able to give it all that he's got like in his previous films, and it's nice seeing that he went down still a tough guy. The rest of the movie proves to be just as surprisingly enjoyable. It does go on too long (125 minutes!), and there is not as much action as you may be expecting. But the drama portion of the movie proves to be compelling, and the few action scenes there are turn out to be exceedingly well done. Certainly no masterpiece, but it is entertaining. Fans of Norris and/or Marvin, however, should be warned that the two of them don't appear in as much of the movie as they may be expecting.

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6 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Breaks too many Hollywood rules to have a chance with most critics, 8 April 2005

Author: paul_pooty from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Many here have called the Delta Force silly jingoistic propaganda, naive, mindless, one-sided, etc. Showing American soldiers beating the bad guys and freeing the oppressed is frowned upon in artsy filmloving circles, and I can appreciate that point of view. So why do the same people who call the Delta Force stupid garbage jump for joy at Tom Hanks or Dustin Hoffman drooling and babbling in Forrest Gump/Rain Man (which prefers insulting the mentally handicapped rather than illuminating their plight)? Or cheer endlessly at Hilary Swank dully portraying tomboys? Clint Eastwood was sneered at by the AMPAS and Hollywood Left for his adventurous westerns until he gradually weaned himself towards antiwar themes and finally, feminist euthanasia (???!!!) Some surprise that Chuck Norris karateying PLO hijackers with the help of Israeli commandos and Lee Marvin wasn't warmly received by the media and academia. To sum up, the key rules of the Limousine Liberals that the Delta Force violates is:

1. Movies about terrorists are perfectly acceptable as long as they're not from the Middle East. So that leaves the no less evil but somewhat rarer Tim McVeigh and Neo Nazi Skinheads breed.

2. If rule #1 is for any reason violated, at least communicate to viewers the legitimate grievances of the insurgents, rebels, guerillas, freedom fighters (never "terrorists"). See the episode of the West Wing immediately following 9/11--in which schoolchildren are told that the Arab street is basically a counterpart to American inner-city ghettos where teens are drawn to gangs because of the sense of pride and inclusion they provide amidst a place of poverty and racial injustice--for reference.

3. It will be a wonderful day when schools have all the money they need and the military has to hold a bake sale to buy motorcycles with hellfire missiles and rearward-firing mortars.

4. For every 2 minutes of martial arts action, at least 1/2 hour must be devoted to preaching nonviolence and respect for law and order. Or only 15 minutes if in the form of a Miyagi-style oriental wisdom scene. Norris finally got the message by Walker, Texas Ranger.

Not that this film is totally without appealing elements to those who didn't vote for Bush/Cheney or Ariel Sharon. An especially blue-state friendly cast was prominent in several of the passenger sequences, which one IMDb reviewer amusingly described as an episode of the Love Boat gone terribly wrong. I myself was waiting for Gopher to pop out at any moment! My girlfriend and I have a deal where for every 80s macho movie she sits through, I have to watch 1 hour of Lifetime, 1 episode of Gilmore Girls, and her Friday night movie pick, usually something with Meryl Streep or Sally Field. I'm still deciding which is worse, that or being hijacked by Abdul and Mustafa!

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5 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Norris More Subdued With All-Star Cast, 21 February 2004

Author: CitizenCaine from Las Vegas, Nevada

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Menahem Golan directs this terrorist thriller with an all-star cast that surely has seen better days: Martin Balsam, Joey Bishop, Lainie Kazan, George Kennedy, Susan Strasberg, Bo Svenson, Robert Vaughn, Shelley Winters, and a young Kim Delaney as a nun. A big surprise is finding the German actress Hanna Schygulla in this film, but she does have a pivotal role as the head stewardess. Chuck Norris is the man that gets the job done, opening up a can of W.A. for those nasty terrorists. Norris does a lot better when he's a part of a larger cast like this; because, his acting talent is not enough to carry a film by itself. The first half of the film is an exciting account of a terrorist hijacking aboard a plane, characters being introduced, and the illustration of the surrounding tension that would exist during such an encounter. Robert Forster effectively plays the menacing terrorist leader. The film deteriorates a bit in the second half when Norris, along with his commander Lee Marvin (in his very last film role), enter the scene. Marvin lends an aura of credibility to whatever role he plays and there's no exception here. He balances Norris' bravado nicely, limiting Norris' usual one man army routine to a few scenes. The action is good, but turns cartoon-like somewhat with Norris so that any tension the film establishes in the first half dissipates in the second half. The soundtrack is annoying with the repetitive synthesizer, typical of 1980's television. Still the film is consistently entertaining, and it is one of Chuck Norris' better films. **1/2 of 4 stars.

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6 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
A surprising espionage thriller, with dramatic moments..., 4 August 1999

Author: ary luiz dalazen jr. (ajr@fortalnet.com.br) from Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil

A group of Arab extremists kidnap an American airline's airplane and threaten to kill everybody as a way to prove their hate for the other nations and shock the world.At the same time in that the negotiations become tense and marked by hostilities, a special army force is activated to rescue the passengers and kill the dangerous fanatic terrorists. Action film that counts with the cast's excellent interpretations, formed by famous movies stars such as Martin Balsam, Joey Bishop, Hanna Schygulla and others, with prominance for Lee Marvin. Directed as an espionage thriller, "Delta Forces" alternates dangerous and risky scenes with moments in which the suspense reaches high levels, reminding the Hitchcock's thrillers. Filmed in several locations of Middle East and counting with an extraordinary photograph that exalts the whole hot and claustrophobic climate of the story, "Delta Force" offers an excellent entertainment, even seeming racist and simpleton in some occasions, and it is the best motion picture of Chuck Norris's career. The most touching sequences, among so many others, are the violent fight of the specialist in martial arts' hero (Norris) with the terrorists' leader (interpreted by Robert Forster, from "Jackie Brown", in a good, but sometimes over acted, performance) and the Norris' attempt to go up in the airplane that is about to take off, at the same time in which he is pursued by the Arab army!! "Delta Force" is rated for violence and it runs 126 minutes. The cast:Lee Marvin, Chuck Norris, Robert Forster, Joey Bishop.

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7 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
Good B-Movie Action, 10 November 2002

Author: kenandraf from Honolulu, Hawaii

Good B-movie action about 1980's Palestinian Terrorists versus the U.S. Delta Force.Delivers everything expected as long as it is clear that the production is not going to be as grand as STAR WARS. The acting and script/screeplay could have been better.But the action/suspense scenes were energetic and exciting.Had a very TV movie feeling to the production style.The only scene that was really done very poorly was the Volkswagen car chase/shooting scene.Only for Patriotic U.S. war action movie fans and big fans of the lead actors.....

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8 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
Bhm Bhm Bhmmm Bhm Bhm Bhm (rest) Bhm Bhm Bhmmm Bhm Bhm Bhm Bhm Bhm Bhm, 5 August 2001
Author: Thomas Clement (Mr. OpEd) from Los Angeles

Sorry, that's the best I could do to get Alan Silvestri's theme across. I saw the last part of this movie many moons ago and one of the reasons I thought it was soooooooooo bad was that insipid theme playing over and over and over again. It's a bright, peppy, we're-number-one theme, so it hardly works for all the death and destruction, but I'm sure Silvestri, one of Hollywood's most accomplished composers had nothing to do with this aural overkill; he composed a theme for one scene and the producers just kept placing the same theme EVERYWHERE in the movie where there's Delta Force action.

So last night, Delta Force comes on. In the mood for a bad movie, honey? Sure, she says. At first I'm surprised. It's not bad. In fact, it's quite promising. Robert Forster as an Arab terrorist? Enough character actors to make a disaster flick? Kim Delaney as a nun? Hanna Schygulla as a stewardess? The acting was good, the plotting tight, and there was actually some genuine tension.

Then the Delta Force arrives.

And so does that unstoppable theme music. Ah, this is the part where the movie gets bad. I was right! My memory hadn't been faulty. Phew. Open a window.

Poor Lee Marvin, looking tired, puffy, and letting his eyebrows do the acting in this, his last role. Norris isn't a bad actor, but come on man, get a hair cut and a shave. The clichés are so painful, I wished they'd shot this without anyone doing any talking at all. And even the most patriotic, flag-waving guy or gal will cringe at how noble and heroic and elite and superior our boys are compared to the sniveling, savage, sneaky Arabs; at the height of the action the Arabs come off as though they studied terrorism with the Ritz Brothers.

The fight between Forster and Norris is perhaps the highlight, but ends stupidly (Mr. Forster's terrorist is killed by a motorcycle-to-Mercedes missile, just like all the special forces use).

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16 out of 29 people found the following comment useful :-
terrorist butt-kicking at its best, 14 November 2001
Author: MichaelM24 from California

I used to watch THE DELTA FORCE all the time when I was a kid. Chuck Norris was my hero, the coolest guy in the world who could take on any threat single-handidly and come out out of the conflict without a drop of sweat. It isn't LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, but THE DELTA FORCE is a solid, well-made action film with a pretty standout cast of actors, with Robert Forster making a truely dispicable terrorist. The rapport between Norris and Lee Marvin, while not concentrated on that much, is good, and the action scenes deliver the kind of response people like to give when watching the good guys wipe out the bad guys with no mercy, the way it should be. It's all capped by an excellent climax in which Chuck unleashes revenge on Forster, which is both serious and funny at the same time because the guy never gets to lay a single blow on Chuck. (Maybe Osama Bin Laden will be meet a similar fate. :) ) Alan Silvestri's Synclavier score is fun, too, with a great main theme. It may not be a complete carbon copy of the 1985 TWA hijacking/standoff incident that inspired it, but it's incorporation of some of the real incidents from that event gives it some added realism. For anybody who wants to fantasize about scumbag terrorists getting what they deserve (especially after September 11th), THE DELTA FORCE is one for you.

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
A fast-moving action flick. Cheesy, Americanized but entertaining., 6 February 2007

Author: vip_ebriega from Philippines

My Take: Cheesy, mindless and ridiculously entertaining.

After reading a couple of reviews and seeing it's neat-looking video cover,I decided to watch "The Delta Force".After watching, I didn't get all that I expected. Well, it does have the hard-hitting action, but it lacks the drama from the all-star supporting cast, including Martin Balsam, Shelley Winters, George Kennedy, Lainie Kazan and Susan Strasberg. I expected that since the film has an stellar supporting cast (like a disaster film), I expected it to have a dramatic turn. But that's just the problem with critical viewers, they expect too much, even more than what an average director can give, that they fell a bit disappointed when it doesn't turn up the way they expect.

But as it turned out,"The Delta Force" is really heavy-duty action entertainment. Chuck Norris is not the one-army he usually is. He teams up with Lee Marvin, and the results are really compelling. The formula of two, although not always as effective as the Gibson-Glover partnership in "Lethal Weapon", is terrific. Besides the excellent performances by the star-studded players, another great performance is that of Hanna Schygulla as a German flight attendant who is forced to cooperate with the terrorists for the sake of the passengers. Other highlights include fantastic action sequences and Alan Silvestri, giving it a more of the old-fashioned action film theme, is pretty memorable in the cheesy sort of way.

This is the first Chuck Norris movie I saw (I saw "Invasion U.S.A." a little later), and maybe it could be the best. This fast-moving action flick is definitely worth the watch with a bag of popcorn on the hand.

Rating: *** out of 5.

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