A Force of One

Chuck Norris exciting vehicle with lots of action , thrills , suspense and spectacular kick-boxing fights . One time the Vietnam war is over , a Karate teacher named Matt Logan (Chuck Norris) keeps a new occupation as trainer , previous life as leader of a Vietnam commando named ¨The Black Tigers¨ (at his former film titled ¨Good guys wear black¨ by Ted Post) . A police lieutenant (Clu Gulager) attempts to resolve why his squad members (Jennifer O'Neill , Pepe Serna, Ron O'Neal, among others) are being mysteriously killed . Then Norris using his skills as fighter to help combat drug trafficking and discover as the undercover narcotic agents are being eliminated one-by-one .

This stirring picture is plenty of action-packed , excitement , tense and cheesy sub-plot to boot with wild stunts . The story displays a plethora of martial-arts struggles and especially Thailand fighting . The movie featured three members of the Norris family in acting roles , these were Aaron Norris , Mike Norris and Chuck Norris . Here Norris cleans up the nasty fighters by means of punches , kicks , bounds and leaps with fights certainly slick . Mediocre screenplay in spite of being written by Ernest Tidyman (French Connection , Shaft). It's violent , frenetic and hectic and not particularly literary but worthy entry in Kung-Fu genre , although runs out energy surprisingly early. Average Norris-thriller , exciting and tense at times with fine work from Clint Ritchie, James Withmore Jr and Clu Gulager as a brilliant chief named Dune . And , of course , Karate expert Chuck Norris who saves the day with lots of visceral violence , he's a nice wrestler who possesses incredible strength . The motion picture was regularly directed by Paul Aaron , in his second theatrical feature film and he replaced filmmaker Ted Post . The film belongs Norris's early period , as during the 70s when he made low-average budget as ¨Breaker,Breaker¨, ¨Slaughter in San Francisco ¨, after that , in the 80s and 90s he acted in better movies as ¨Code of silence¨, ¨Delta Force¨ , ¨Silent rage¨ ,¨Octagon¨ ,¨Forced vengeance¨, ¨Delta Force I,II¨ , ¨An eye for an eye¨ among others , with successful box office at cinemas and video-rentals . In the 90s and 2000s with exception of ¨Walker Texas Ranger¨, the Norris star had gone down . Action addicts will give this one a passing grade , all others need not apply . If you're a previous Norris fans , you'll like it but contains enough action and violence for enthusiasts of the Karate genre . This is a must see if you're a die-hard Chuck Norris fan .

Back when A Force of One was originally released, I viewed Chuck Norris' movies as boring, brainless, and cheap. In the years since, I've changed that original assessment and can see them for what they really are. Now I look at these early Chuck Norris' movies as fun, brainless, and cheap.

The plot is incredibly simple and shows a total lack of creativity. When two cops are killed by someone using Martial Arts, they seek out the one man who might be able to help them - the local karate champion, Matt Logan (Norris). The cops quickly persuade Matt to help them, but when Matt's son turns up dead, he goes from helping to an active participant.

Instead of writing a regular review or pointing out strengths and weaknesses in the movie, I'll just list a few random thoughts I had while watching:

· It's not that the cops are skeptical about how karate can help them, a few act like they can't even pronounce the word. · The needle marks in that girl's arm makes it look like she been using a turkey-baster to shoot-up with. · You would think that after one set of cops is killed that the superior officer would do a better job of keeping track of where and what his men are working on. · Wow, a ninja in the stockroom! You just don't see enough of stuff like that in real life. · If you couldn't guess that Matt's son was going to get into serious trouble when he started his own investigating, you haven't seen enough bad action movies. · The identities of the bad guys are so obvious it's embarrassing. · Why is the police captain wearing a Matt Logan t-shirt under his bath robe?

It may be bad, but there are still several enjoyable moments. One of my favorites is the most obvious - watching Chuck Norris square off against Bill 'Superfoot" Wallace. Two legends of the Martial Arts in a fight to the death - good stuff. It almost makes the whole movie worthwhile.

A pair of Los Angeles narcotics police runs afoul of a group of distributors protected by a masked Kung Fu enforcer who will stop at nothing to ensure the flow of drugs. Enter Matt Logan (Chuck Norris) a Vietnam vet now world famous kick boxer making a run at the title. The police consult Logan and are eventually able to get him to help train the other members of the narc squad in Kung Fu. Logan takes a look into the case and finds out that police corruption and ex-war buddies may some how be involved.

Chuck Norris movies (for the most part) are usually good fun. A good many of Norris' earlier films are good solid action flicks, not necessarily classics but fun nonetheless." A Force of One" is a fun film but is severely dated. However it moves at a good clip and the action scenes are pretty decent. Many of the usual clichés are on display and good olé' Chuck has his way with the bad guys.

"A force of one" is more serious than the other Chuck Norris movies, but it's also very dull. The actors are above average, but the fighting sequences does not deliver much to applaud for. Seems more like a criminal than an action-movie. (4 out of 10)

I saw this when it opened back in '79. I actually saw Bill Wallace fight the week before and Chuck Norris was in his corner. I had just started studying karate about a year earlier so I was psyched about seeing it. I have to disagree with a few people's opinions about this movie. While no one would EVER confuse this with Academy Awards material; for what it is, it's not bad at all. In fact, it can be downright enjoyable! As for the fights, a lot of people have been putting them down, especially the ring fights. I thought that they were, for the most part, outstanding. You have to remember that back when this was filmed, the concept of "fighting the camera" to bring the audience into the fight was a relatively new concept and was very effective for its time. Granted, it's been WAY overused since then, but remember that this was 1979. So just keep in mind it's time and limitations and I think that you can really have a blast with this one. I do.