The Delta Force (1986)

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Elite operation rescues crew.

Based on the real-life hijacking of TWA flight 847, which occurred on June 14, 1985, the story centers on a Boeing 707, which gets hijacked by a terrorist group lead by Abdul (Robert Forster).  The terrorists take over the plane and force it to fly to Beirut, Lebanon where they then separate the Jewish passengers and those that were in the Marines from the others. These hostages are then transported to a prison cell in Beirut while twelve other terrorists come on board. Major Scott McCoy (Chuck Norris) and Colonel Nick Alexander (Lee Marvin) head the Delta Force team assigned to rescue the remaining passengers on board while killing off the terrorists.

The film was directed by Menahem  Golan who headed the Cannon Production Company which was notorious for producing a lot of cheap, cheesy, grade-B action flicks during the ‘80s and initially I was fearing the worst although this one is surprisingly tolerable and adequately funded. The opening scenes inside the plane prove to be moderately intense with Hanna Schygulla a stand-out as the brave stewardess.

The second act though veers off in too many directions with the hostages essentially becoming forgotten as it then focuses more on the elite squad of soldiers, which dilutes the narrative too much. Eventually they’re just too many characters to keep track of and too many scenarios that occur outside of the airplane until it becomes confusing and overreaching. A good film should stick to only a few main characters that the viewer can connect with and keeping them in the majority of the scenes, but this thing takes on more than it can chew making the viewer feel detached from what is going on the more it progresses.

The third act gets filled with a lot of over-the-top actions segments that looks like it was taken straight out of a comic book and diminishes the realism that had come before it. Norris shows no screen presence at all and only comes alive when he is doing an action stunt while Marvin, who was much older and not in the best of health during the production, shows much more onscreen energy. It almost seemed like it would’ve been better had Norris not been in it at all especially with the way the film tries to portray him as being this mystical, super human figure that borders on being corny.

The music is geared for an American propaganda film and the film’s mindset is that the US is always the good guy in no matter what foreign mission or policy it takes on. It also conveys the idea that might equals right while the proportion of terrorists who are killed, which is essentially all of them, compared to only one American soldier seemed way off-kilter.

Forster gives an outstanding performance as the villain as he literally disappears into role while conveying a foreign accent that seemed so genuine I almost thought his voice had been dubbed. The terrorists are portrayed as being just as nervous as the hostages if not more so, while at certain random moments showing a surprisingly human side, which is well done, but unfortunately everything else here is formulaic and fraught with too much of an emotional appeal.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: February 14, 1986

Runtime: 2Hours 9Minutes

Rated R

Director: Menahem Golan

Studio: Cannon Film Distributors

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, YouTube