Review of TOP DOG

TOP DOG

Sergeant LOU SWANSON is investigating a hate-crime bombing. His police dog, RENO, a Briard, leads him to a moored boat where Lou finds explosives. Unfortunately, neo-Nazis find him, and shoot both him and the dog. Miraculously, Reno survives.

Switch to detective JAKE WILDER (Chuck Norris), who is grumpily awakened by his chief, KEN CALLAHAN and ordered to find Lou's killers. "I'm on suspension," Jake says, but to no avail; the suspension is canceled. To his further disgust, Jake, a loner, must work with a partner, someone as brilliant and efficient as Jake, but also as insubordinate.  In walks an attractive police officer, Lieutenant SAVANNAH BOYETTE, but she isn't his new associate. Rather, he's to work with the dog, Reno.

It turns out the bombing and murders are due to a nation-wide neo-Nazi conspiracy led by people with unsubtle names like OTTO DIETRICH. Their plan is to combine various hate groups, and bomb a ecumenical brotherhood meeting. They trap a Catholic Bishop, a rabbi, and some Indian looking guy with a pink yarmulke in a limousine with a bomb hidden underneath. Aha, but they haven't reckoned with Jake and Reno.

Reno is the real star of this movie.  The dog follows complicated orders, knows to bite through Jake's bonds without being told, and in general puts Lassie to shame. Why in the world do Lou and Jake feed him jelly donuts; don't the people in this movie know that's not healthy for dogs? And since when do police dogs wander the streets without a leash?

Otto et al need to learn the rules of successful villainy. For example--don't tell an underling to kill the hero and then you walk out of the room. Kill the hero yourself.

Jake, of course, had to disarm the bomb under the limousine. Which wire should he cut, the red or the green? I voted for the red. He doesn't get the girl in the end, but he does get the dog.

Apparently Chuck Norris is a creationist. I don't expect much from karate-expert actors, but a little intellect would be nice.

The movie has a nice though generic anti-bigotry message, but also implies that it's okay for a cop to ignore due process (by not waiting for a search warrant) if he's sure he's in the right.

This is a funny movie. It's easy to rip it apart because of all the foolishness, especially involving the dog, but the combination of action/violence and comedy make for a good workout movie. I give it ++++. It will get your pulse up to a run.

Review of DELTA FORCE

DELTA FORCE

Action, Lee Marvin, Chuck Norris, Teheran, hostage crisis, terrorism, hijacking, 1986

 

The film starts with the unsuccessful 1980 attempt to rescue American hostages seized by Teheran. A helicopter has crashed, and the soldiers are retreating to their plane.  Acting against orders, Captain SCOTT MCCOY (Chuck Norris - who else?), rescues a fellow officer PETE PETERSON and afterwards resigns from the army because he's so disgusted with all the screw-ups.

Five years later, two men with suits that scream, 'I want to be conspicuous,' board and hijack a plane from Greece to Rome (and then New York). When the men, ABDUL RAFAI and MUSTAFA (played by David Menachem, a nice irony), find a ring with Hebrew lettering, they tell the stewardess, INGRID HARDING, to identify all the Jewish names on the passports. She cries and says as a German, she won't cooperate with such a selection process, but after getting slapped around, she agrees to read the passport names, and  people with names like Kaplan or Goldman are called up to the front of the plane. To add to the pathos, one of the Jews has little numbers tattooed on his arm.

The pilot, Captain ROGER CAMPBELL, manages to flick an emergency switch that the terrorist standing right next to him is too stupid to recognize. Thus, the famed, elite DELTA FORCE, led by NICK ALEXANDER (Lee Marvin) and assisted by McCoy (persuaded to come out of retirement and now a colonel) is activated.

The plane flies to BEIRUT, LEBANON where the Jewish hostages are taken off the plane and transferred to a terrorist hideout, then to ALGIERS, where the women and children are released. There, they first confront the Delta Force, and, after a disastrous gunfight (due to lousy intelligence), return to Beirut. Delta force follows, and the confrontations begin in earnest.

I don't know if this counts as a spoiler, but with both Lee Marvin and Chuck Norris as leaders, how can Delta Force lose?

There is a lot of silliness in this movie. The terrorists go to Beirut, refuse to release the women and children, and then fly to Algiers where they willingly release the women and children. Then they return to Beirut without difficulty, even though their fuel tanks were leaking from bullet holes.  And, of course you have the standard insanity of people having the shit beat out of them and still jumping back up and fighting some more.

There was one point of suspense which persisted almost to the end: would the Jews be rescued or would the terrorists murder them first?

This is an exciting moving and most of it engages your attention.  I give it ++++.  It will often get your working-out pulse up to a run.