Nepotism is something that’s been occuring in Hollywood for decades with varying degrees of success, but surely Delta Force 3 has to be some sort of nexus point when it comes to desperately trying to make stars out of the less talented children of established actors. If you cast your mind back, the Delta Force franchise was once the property of the stoic moustache of Chuck Norris, who glared and kicked his way through international terrorism and psychotic drug Lord through two entire movies; but by 1991 Norris’ movie career was winding down and was preparing to move on to other things such as the immovable stetson of Walker: Texas Ranger.
Drafted in to fill his boots was a bunch of second generation action wannabes that included Nick Cassavetes (son of director John Cassavetes), Nick Douglas (youngest offspring of Kirk Douglas) and the spawn of Norris himself, Mike Norris, who doesn’t even get to score the leading role in his old man’s franchise. The result is pretty much what you’d expect and is pretty much the final, twitching dead thoes of that style of goofy war movie that only the Cannon Group could provide.
Unless Western influence is completely removed from the Middle East, ice blooded terrorist leader Kahlil Kadal vows to bomb Maimi, Floria, boldly assuming that anyone would actually notice (have you seen the news reports that come out of Floria?!). In response, America rolls out the ever dependable strike team known as Delta Force; but this isn’t the Delta Force that you remember, as this new team of fresh faces are now lead by the super-serious jawline of Major Charlie Stewart. However, despite being backed up by point man Greg Lassiter and gleeful explosives expert Mike Norris, the powers that be decide that the all-powerful Delta Force needs back up and teams them up with a group of steely faced Russian Spetnaz commandos led by the competing jawline of Captain Sergei Ilyich Leskov and his intelligence expert, Irenia Usuri. Obviously, what with this still being 1991, the two groups greet each other by brawling like they’re in a 1960s western bar fight and state their intentions with growled understatments like “Let’s get one thing straight, I don’t like you.”.
Still, as one of Kadal’s acolytes sets a plan in motion to smuggle an nuclear bomb onto a live television show inside the wheelchair of a TV producer whose leg he had broken by thugs (no, seriously), the Delta Force heads out to the country of Sudalia to capture their target and (delta) force him to call off the bombing – but with palpable friction building between the Americans and the Russians, can they get on the same page enough to save the day?
Say what you will about the questionable tactics of the previous Delta Force movies, but whether is was shamelessly using actual terrorist events to fuel their wildly patriotic plots, convincing a visibly confused Lee Marvin to star, or just having Chuck Norris drop drug barons thousands of feet to their deaths, a least they were memorable in a ludicrous, goofy action movie sort of way. In comparison, Delta Force 3: The Killing Game proves to be excruciatingly bland, with its desperate band of second gen actors barely registering as their generic personalities do a better job of blending in with the background than their chamo could ever hope to do.
Since we’re still in the dying realms of Cannon we can expect to have to weather cringe-worthy middle eastern stereotypes so prepare to hear a lot of twanging, Arabian music to accompany scenes of bomb preparation, but while the villain stuff is still the same as it ever was, we have nothing to balance it when it comes to our gang of heroes. I’ve never credited the legend that is Chuck Norris with what you’d call an over abundance of charisma – in fact, if he hit anything close to one, recognisable human emotion per film, he was batting above average – but at least when his educated feet did the talking, watching him wade through whole armies single handedly was always good for some camp carnage. However, The Killing Game doesn’t give us any reason to feel the same with this new clutch of nobodies and watching them tear through the enemy has all the novelty value of watching someone else playing a Call Of Duty game on the easiest setting that can find.
Nick Cassavetes went on to have a noticable directing career and memorable roles in movies like John Woo’s Face/Off, but based on the strength of his performance here, you’d be hard pressed to pick him out of a police line up while you’re watching a scene with him in it. Elsewhere, Mike Norris is an utter non-starter, firing machine guns wildly in lieu of the fact that he’s barely been given any lines, but at least Eric Douglas gets something to play with, even if it’s the inane subplot of planning to open a fireworks factory with his Russian opposite, and he even get to go full Kirk Douglas with a raspy scream of “MEDIIIIIIIIC!!!” once his new best friend (of about twelve hours) catches a fateful bullet and then hurls himself into enemy fire waving an incendiary device above his head.
Aside from that, things prove to be pretty boring despite the fact that the filmmakers detonate the equivalent of a small city in an attempt to try and galvanise a shred of excitement, but its doomed to fail thanks to the fact that all of its characters might as well be action men dolls for all you’d care who all utter pullstring bullshit such as one meathead announcing “I promised my son I’d be back on time for his birthday.” or another taking one look at the structure they have to infiltrate and remarking “They sure didn’t have us in mind when they built this place!” – like, isn’t that the fucking point of an enemy fortress?
However, after a movie filled with boring stealth missions and even more boring firefights, the movie manages to squeeze in some prime, awesome stupidity in its final moments. When face to face with the bomber who has his foot on a dead man’s switch located in the back of a fake wheelchair (?), Leskov tosses a knife to Stewart who slides along the floor only to stab the terrorist through the foot, pinning the switch down – and if the movie had busted out more innovative idiocy during its bland runtime, maybe we could have had yet another slice of Cannon cheese. But as it stands, the only group this Delta Force managed to eliminate was themselves.
Delta Farce.
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