The President's Man

It's pretty sad when anyone can write the dialogue of a show, as I was able to while viewing this film. It was nice to see Stuart Whitman and Ralph Waite, but this movie is nothing more than a "Walker Texas Ranger" sequel. And Norris in a classroom is a slap in the face of Dr. Indiana Jones.

When the first lady is kidnapped by some terrorists demanding something or other, Joshua McCord is dispatched to rescue her and, against all the odds, he does. However after the mission he cannot help but feel that he is getting too old for these dangerous missions and even his mentor agrees. With help from his companion Que, McCord selects special forces soldier Deke Slater – only problem being that Slater is currently doing 30 years in prison for disobeying an order, hitting an officer and killing an inmate.

Some television movies are made because they deal with subjects best suited to the small screen; however some are made because the companies need some filler that will draw the undemanding audience and keep them watching long enough to sell them lots of stuff in the adverts – guess which type this film is? That's right, this is filler and nothing but filler. The plot is about an old hand taking on a new student to make him an all-kicking hero – from just this summary it pretty much writes itself and you can see that it is aimed at repeating this formula over a weekly, or movie-special basis. It tries to push the buttons but it gets sillier and sillier, to the point where it goes out of its way to drag in backstory and the Veitnamise into the final story – with almost laughable results! The training and mission structure allows for bits of dialogue and plenty of kicking. However the dialogue is flat and obvious while the kicking is never that exciting or stylish, just looking like every other action series kicking around on the cable backwaters.

The cast rise to the challenge by matching the average material blow for blow. Norris sleep walks his way through the lead role – happy to have a bit of cash in his pocket but seemingly damned if he'll do more than that. Neal is typical "special forces hardnut" stuff but if I walked past him in the street I still wouldn't recognise him because he is just very samey and uninteresting. Tung is quite cute and is at least sassy – not much but it makes her look like an Oscar contender next to these two blocks of action wood. The support cast are just as bad as the lead two – wooden stereotypes down to the slightest character.

Overall this is action filler for the cable stations, pushing all the basic buttons for beered up viewers. The plot does everything you expect it to, the acting is wooden, the dialogue clunky at best and the action is enjoyable enough but has nothing special or unique about it. If you are a very undemanding action fan who has had a few beers then by all means, try this out, it might just satisfy you but it certainly did nothing in particular for me.

STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All Costs

How does Chuck Norris manage to age quite so well?He's seems second only to Elton John in the category of people who just don't look their age,despite being at a time in their lives when they really should be showing it.The guy's 60 years old,and he looks the age of a man in his?......well,come to think of it,this guy just dos'nt look any age.

Sadly,this observation of the ravages of time is probably the most interesting thing about this rather sketchy TV movie farrago,a shambles of action,adventure and thriller elements.Squandering the kidnap of the first lady plot within the first 20 minutes,we then move onto a grindingly slow and plodding story of nuclear mass terrorists,and their supposed attempts to invade America.This coy about the leading man's age quite self referentialises itself as he goes about with his Japanese daughter training a hot headed army recruit Dirty Dozen style,so he can take over his place,and he won't have any worries about returning after retirement.The relationship they and some other charecters develop is quite engagingly told,thanks to Chuck's enveloped sense of warmlieness and sense of experience throughout,and the training scenes warrant some merit.But other than that,the other cast are leadenly cardboard,the plot is lathargic and lazy,the dialouge is pretty much non-existent,and the fighting/action sequences are just not very involving at all.

The success of Walker:Texas Ranger has been generated from overseas,and this is the only new work of Chuck's we get to see.Frankly,one would have hoped he could have given us something a little more original and exciting than this.**

This made for TV movie gives Chuck Norris fans some nostalgic scenes from the past combined with a promise for a new series to come. Norris plays Joshua McCord, a college professor who moonlights as the president's man in emergencies. The movie leads off with some far-fetched, but entertaining, intrigue in rescuing the First Lady from terrorists. But the real story revolves around Chuck's desire to train a young agent to work with him. Dylan Neal stars as Deke Slater, a spec ops soldier falsely accused and imprisoned. A hard charger with an attitude, Slater is targeted for death in the brig, and winds up having to slay one of his attackers to survive. Chuck steps in and recruits the angry Slater to work with him. In a number of well done scenes we see the older Norris training, lifting weights and sparring with the younger man. Its great watching Chuck, at 60 years old, hold his own with the 31 year old Neal. When we see him bare-chested, Norris can still show off the muscular build that made him a Hollywood legend. Slowly but surely, Slater loses his attitude and comes to see Chuck almost as a father figure. Together they become a lethal team of silent assassins and are ready for whatever mission the president assigns them. That mission comes fast enough when American women and children are captured by terrorists in Colombia. Chuck learns that General Tran, an old enemy from Viet Nam, is behind the plot. With this extra incentive, Deke and Chuck parachute into the jungle to rescue the hostages. As soon as they land, the action heats up. As they infiltrate the terrorists' camp, Chuck uses some old school martial arts moves to break the neck of an unwary sentry. As soon as we hear the "snap," we see Chuck give a little grin, as if to say "see – the old man's still got it!" Less than a minute later, Deke – whose own shirtless scenes revealed a chiseled physique – uses pure muscle to likewise twist a bad guy's head with a satisfying crack. Throughout the action, it's as if they are in competition to see who can rack up the biggest body count. As they close in on Gen. Tran, the camera alternates between each man as they employ different techniques to silently kill a dozen terrorists. This movie has some fun throwbacks to Chuck's earlier movies. It's no surprise that Chuck has a final showdown with General Tran (played by Soon-Tek Oh, whom Norris fans will recognize from previous run ins with Chuck in his earlier Viet Nam films,) and it's especially satisfying to see Chuck finish him off with the same signature "hangman" hold he used to break Bill "Superfoot" Wallace's neck in "Force of One." The end of the movie has Deke Slater becoming a fully fledged member of Chuck's team with the promise of more missions to come. For anybody that admires an older guy's ability to play an action hero, Norris is your man, while Dylan Neal makes an impressive debut as an up and coming movie badass.

Don't listen to all the trumped up bad reviews for this film! I'm convinced they are mostly from Norris haters because he is a known Republican!

The film is great. It is better than the TV series Texas Ranger. It is just like a movie in the theaters except it has abrupt cuts to black where a commercial might be.

The film is a mix of the James Bond style movie with American military action films. It has humor and excitement and is just a fun romp. The main characters are pretty well conceived and are well acted.

If this had been a planned series, I'm sorry it never materialized.

It is a good family entertainment and could very well have been a film release. It is better than some of the latest Steven Seagal movies by far and has some good action scenes. 8 out of 10!