Invasion U.S.A.
In 1985, America lived in simmering Cold War fear of nuclear annihilation, President Reagan doing his best to chill citizens who didn't vote for him and those who did with stories about Reds, Marxists, Sandinistas, Communists, Russians, all making trouble for freedom-loving democracies. His bullshit could replace the Democrats' Russiagate hysteria these days without alteration in theme, if not in details.
The same president who ordered the mining of Nicaragua's harbors while backing an illegal war in that country, also supporting massacres by death squads in El Salvador, was himself a terrorist.
In the Good Guys versus Bad Guys belief system of Chuck Norris--himself, to this day, a rather brainless Republican--the enemy is without, a force willing and able to invade the blameless U.S. of A.
Invasion U.S.A. starts with a massacre of Cuban refugees on a boat with a load of cocaine on board. The killers, led by Mikhail Rostov (Richard Lynch), have disguised themselves as Coast Guard personnel, so the Stars and Stripes flying on the "rescue" boat's staff seems to the Cubans like salvation as they flee Commie dictator Fidel Castro's tyranny. The killers want the cocaine, but they also want the dead bodies of their victims to put into the Coast Guard vessel, leaving the boat at a Miami dock.
Following this weird prelude of bullets and blood, Matt Hunter (Chuck Norris), retired CIA agent, helps his neighbor manhandle an alligator into a portable cage. I'll hand it to Norris, he really puts his hands and arms around that squirming animal. The scene shows the man of action getting a tough job done without displaying any emotions on his face, something I've noticed in episodes of Walker Texas Ranger. A good actor Chuck Norris isn't. Vin Diesel, an average actor who benefits from enough screen presence to make himself entertaining to watch, is as far beyond Norris as a thespian as Jack Lemmon was to Tor Johnson.
Having ripped on Chuck Norris, I'll move on. The film's by contrast good actor, Richard Lynch as Rostov, a Russian of course and Matt Hunter's arch-enemy, gives a typically Richard Lynchian villain performance. I've never seen this guy play a decent human being. His typecasting was due to his appearance. There's real scarring on his neck, his downturned mouth looks humorless, his eyes cold. His IMDb page lists 164 credits, so he was probably a nice guy (he died in 2012). Having gotten hired for so many projects, he must've worked well with others, including, I assume, with the robot Chuck Norris.
Rostov's plan (carried out on behalf of the Soviet government? I'm not sure) is to execute a landing on a Florida beach with the disembarking of hundreds of Russian maniacs with guns. They spread terror across southern Florida, doing random shootings, blowing up houses in quiet neighborhoods. Some dress as cops or National Guardsmen, killing people and thus inspiring fear and distrust of authority figures (as if that didn't already exist in some communities).
The purpose of this terror and mayhem is to get American government to declare martial law, to suspend civil liberties, instituting curfews and probably causing a lot of innocent people to be arrested, shot, and hounded.
The curious thing about this movie's premise is that in 2001, following on the heels of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the federal government did institute a program of curtailing civil liberties: the Patriot Act. A mass scare event like 9/11 was all it took to convince almost every Washington politician that this country needed stricter watching and control by law enforcement. NSA surveillance mushroomed while it became very easy for a cretin like George W. Bush to convince even millions of Democratic voters that, to use a phrase common in those days, "This is the new normal."
In the Norris film, it's a terror force from the Soviet Union. In 2001, just as improbably, it was supposedly bearded terrorists plotting in caves in Afghanistan. In truth, we have more to fear from liars and war profiteers in our own government.
One thing this movie has plenty of is action, mainly involving automatic weapons fire, to the point of monotony. If you like Gun Porn, this film is for you. Matt Hunter, when he kills, which is often, never breaks a sweat (though it's Florida), never changes expression. He's a machine that used to work for the CIA, an organization that was then, in 1985, aiding the Mujahideen in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation and war there. The sequel to that real life movie is what caused the world we're stuck in.
Vic Neptune
In 1985, America lived in simmering Cold War fear of nuclear annihilation, President Reagan doing his best to chill citizens who didn't vote for him and those who did with stories about Reds, Marxists, Sandinistas, Communists, Russians, all making trouble for freedom-loving democracies. His bullshit could replace the Democrats' Russiagate hysteria these days without alteration in theme, if not in details.
The same president who ordered the mining of Nicaragua's harbors while backing an illegal war in that country, also supporting massacres by death squads in El Salvador, was himself a terrorist.
In the Good Guys versus Bad Guys belief system of Chuck Norris--himself, to this day, a rather brainless Republican--the enemy is without, a force willing and able to invade the blameless U.S. of A.
Invasion U.S.A. starts with a massacre of Cuban refugees on a boat with a load of cocaine on board. The killers, led by Mikhail Rostov (Richard Lynch), have disguised themselves as Coast Guard personnel, so the Stars and Stripes flying on the "rescue" boat's staff seems to the Cubans like salvation as they flee Commie dictator Fidel Castro's tyranny. The killers want the cocaine, but they also want the dead bodies of their victims to put into the Coast Guard vessel, leaving the boat at a Miami dock.
Following this weird prelude of bullets and blood, Matt Hunter (Chuck Norris), retired CIA agent, helps his neighbor manhandle an alligator into a portable cage. I'll hand it to Norris, he really puts his hands and arms around that squirming animal. The scene shows the man of action getting a tough job done without displaying any emotions on his face, something I've noticed in episodes of Walker Texas Ranger. A good actor Chuck Norris isn't. Vin Diesel, an average actor who benefits from enough screen presence to make himself entertaining to watch, is as far beyond Norris as a thespian as Jack Lemmon was to Tor Johnson.
Having ripped on Chuck Norris, I'll move on. The film's by contrast good actor, Richard Lynch as Rostov, a Russian of course and Matt Hunter's arch-enemy, gives a typically Richard Lynchian villain performance. I've never seen this guy play a decent human being. His typecasting was due to his appearance. There's real scarring on his neck, his downturned mouth looks humorless, his eyes cold. His IMDb page lists 164 credits, so he was probably a nice guy (he died in 2012). Having gotten hired for so many projects, he must've worked well with others, including, I assume, with the robot Chuck Norris.
Rostov's plan (carried out on behalf of the Soviet government? I'm not sure) is to execute a landing on a Florida beach with the disembarking of hundreds of Russian maniacs with guns. They spread terror across southern Florida, doing random shootings, blowing up houses in quiet neighborhoods. Some dress as cops or National Guardsmen, killing people and thus inspiring fear and distrust of authority figures (as if that didn't already exist in some communities).
The purpose of this terror and mayhem is to get American government to declare martial law, to suspend civil liberties, instituting curfews and probably causing a lot of innocent people to be arrested, shot, and hounded.
The curious thing about this movie's premise is that in 2001, following on the heels of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the federal government did institute a program of curtailing civil liberties: the Patriot Act. A mass scare event like 9/11 was all it took to convince almost every Washington politician that this country needed stricter watching and control by law enforcement. NSA surveillance mushroomed while it became very easy for a cretin like George W. Bush to convince even millions of Democratic voters that, to use a phrase common in those days, "This is the new normal."
In the Norris film, it's a terror force from the Soviet Union. In 2001, just as improbably, it was supposedly bearded terrorists plotting in caves in Afghanistan. In truth, we have more to fear from liars and war profiteers in our own government.
One thing this movie has plenty of is action, mainly involving automatic weapons fire, to the point of monotony. If you like Gun Porn, this film is for you. Matt Hunter, when he kills, which is often, never breaks a sweat (though it's Florida), never changes expression. He's a machine that used to work for the CIA, an organization that was then, in 1985, aiding the Mujahideen in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation and war there. The sequel to that real life movie is what caused the world we're stuck in.
Vic Neptune
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