The President's Man

I just want to say: This is a great action movie, almost a Bond movie. Great visual effect..! Of couse lots of fighting. Chuck is still going strong!!! It's impressive to see how fit he still is. Enjoy the movie... I did!

By the end of the 90s and 2000s the steam of the action heroes had started to run out (until Sylvester Stallone invigorated everyone's careers with the 'Expendables' franchise). Although Chuck Norris had a popular television series with 'Walker, Texas Ranger', his full length movies were also mostly television productions. 'The President's Man' is the best out of those. The movie is no way perfect. There are inconsistencies and plot holes, and the movie is bounded by the low budget and television production restraints. The story itself is quite interesting (there is a secret agent, who follows the President's direct order, but whose identity remains secret even for the President), but the screenplay follows the predictable path.

Chuck Norris stars as Joshua McCord: a typical stoic, a one-man-army type of hero. He wishes to retire and starts looking to his replacement. He finds a Delta Force sergeant Deke Slater (Dylan Neal), a soldier with an attitude who has been imprisoned for the insubordination. Slater is a guy who seems to follow his instincts (and heart) more than his brains, and McCord's task is to humble and prepare him for the upcoming missions. The main characters are nicely developed and with meaty enough backstories to care about them. Chuck Norris, Dylan Neal and Jennifer Tung form a cool trio of characters with great chemistry between them. Unfortunately villians are generic cardboard cut outs. Fight scenes and stunts are nice. In the finale the movie treats us with a proper stand-off like one proper martial arts movie should. The soundtrack is epic. It occasionally reminds the music from James Bond movies. There's nothing wrong with that - most of the super spy movies have scores that have similar compositions.

'The President's Man' is not very demanding, but sometimes it's just good to watch a simple action movie where good guys win with ease. A must see for any self respecting Chuck Norris fan. And you just have to respect that Chuck Norris was nearly 60 in this movie.

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.**

A U. S. president's highly classified secret agent who thinks it's time for him to retire must find a fearless replacement to take over his extremely dangerous military missions . He's Joshua McCord (Chuck Norris) who is both a teacher and a government operative who answers to the President (Ralph Waite) . McCord has a daughter who is liaison with the President. When the first lady (Marla Adams) is kidnapped by a mysterious band of terrorists, he goes into action and subsequently finds himself thrust head to the most dangerous assignments . Joshua chooses as his stand-in to Deke Slater (Dylan Neal) , a soldier who was wrongfully convicted of insubordination and assaulting his commanding officer. Joshua and Que (Jennifer Tung) proceed to see if he has what it takes . But then they get a mission which has personal implications for Joshua. So they go. No mission is impossible.

This is a Chuck Norris recital , containing action-packed , thrills , chases , fights , pursuits and lots violence . Chuck Norris demonstrates still his qualities as an action hero on the fights against the largest-than-life murderous by means of punches , slaps , kicks , bounds and more leaps . Here Norris needs to find a replacement , and finally finds him , Dylan Neal, subsequently training him in all kinds of risked tests ; the problem is that the chosen one is a rebel, a troublesome soldier and then Chuck considers that he couldn't be the best option to succeed him. Chuck Norris ordinary acting as Joshua McCord , an aging secret service operative who needs to train a younger man in his field and becomes involved into a no-holds-barred, kick-butt action mission. This action-thriller is an inferior Norris film , in fact Norris was far from his best period with hits , such as : ¨The Octagon¨ , ¨An eye for an eye¨ , ¨Forced vengeance¨ , ¨Lone Wolf MacQuade¨, ¨US Invasion¨, among others . Chuck Norris is familiar to fans worldwide as the star of action films such as Hitman (1991), Delta Force (1986) and Delta Force 2 (1990) , Missing in Action (1984) and its sequels, Firewalker (1986) and Sidekicks ( (1992). And he eventually working in television where has played the same character , Cordell Walker, in three different television series: Walker, Texas Ranger (1993), Martial Law (1998) and Sons of Thunder (1999). Being compellingly accompanied by Dylan Neal as the choosen soldier who results to be convicted of murder and unwilling to follow Joshua's instructions, which makes think he might not be the one and the beautiful Chinese/American Jennifer Tung as Joshua's daughter and main liaison with the President of the United States . Adding other familiar secondaries , such as Ralph Waite , Jonathan Nichols , Stuart Whitman and Soon-Tek Oh who also appeared in ¨Missing in action II¨as an evil torturer . In fact, this The President's Man is a kind of sequel to ¨Missing in action 3¨ in which Braddock returned looking for his disappeared Vietnam wife and kid after downfall Saigon and has even somewhat echoes bare-chested electro-shock torture scene in 1988's "Missing in Action III".

The motion picture was ordinarily but professionally directed by Eric Norris and Michael Preece . Eric Norris is Chuck'son and usual stunt , while Michael Preece is a craftsman who usually works in television making episodes of famous series, such as : 7th Heaven, Baywatch , Falcon Crest, Renegade, Dallas , The Young Riders, B. J. and the Bear , Mike Hammer , T. J. Hooker , Flamingo Road, Barnaby Jones , Shirley , The Hulk and Walker Texas Rangers , among others . Rating : 4.5/10 . Average , only for Chuck Norris fans.