Quite simply the ultimate Chuck Norris movie. Relating the then science fictionish concept of foreign terrorists invading the US, the Cannon production INVASION U.S.A. (1985) saw Norris, after years of inconsistent fare (such as SILENT RAGE and LONE WOLF McQUADE), finally coming into his own onscreen. His famously laconic acting style was put to good use in a vehicle that plays to his strengths—and no wonder, as he was given a co-screenwriting credit. His scripting partner was James Burner and the director Joseph Zito, both veterans of Norris’ previous film MISSING IN ACTION (1984), and the make-up effects were accomplished by the legendary Tom Savini, together with his now equally famous assistants Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger.
The action begins with a boat filled with Cuban migrants, including several children, encountering what looks an American Coast Guard vessel manned by one Mikhail Rostov (perennial 1980s bad guy Richard Lynch). This fellow initially seems welcoming, but then orders his goons to slaughter the refugees, whose boat, we learn, is being used to smuggle cocaine in its lower hulls. Rostov uses the cocaine to purchase illegal firepower from a scumbag named Mickey (Billy Drago, another prolific 1980s baddie); solidifying his evil nature, Rostov concludes the deal by shooting Mickey in the balls (not the last time he’ll do that to someone) and jamming a metal cocaine straw up the nose of his girlfriend.
Enter Matt Hunter (Norris), an ex-CIA enforcer who now works as an alligator wrangler in the everglades. Hunter has a history with Rostov, and allows himself to be talked into rejoining the agency after his house gets blown up.
Rostov by this point has put “the operation” into effect. This involves the importation of hundreds of soldiers whose aim is to destabilize America (actually Atlanta, Georgia), with attacks on a white suburban neighborhood and a Chicano fiesta. The authorities lack the resources to deal with the mayhem, leaving Hunter to do so on his own. Driving a black pickup, he takes out several terrorists in a shopping mall, several more dressed as National Guardsmen, and, in the film’s most iconic scene, thwarts an attempt at blowing up a church with a suitcase bomb by stealing the case and delivering the line “Didn’t work huh? Now it will.”
Acknowledging that “For every (terrorist) I kill, a hundred succeed,” Hunter hatches a scheme involving a high profile arrest in Miami that alerts Rostov to his presence. It all comes down (rather disappointingly given the otherwise highly expansive scale) to a one-on-one confrontation in an office building.
INVASION U.S.A. was a rare example of Cannon’s infamously penny-pinching honchos Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus providing a film’s makers with adequate funds. Upon seeing the dailies, Golan and Globus apparently increased the budget by $2 million, resulting in an impressive amount of set-ups and large-scale action set-pieces packed with hundreds of extras and elaborate stuntwork (with a whopping 88 stuntpeople credited). This makes for an exciting but disjointed film, with Hunter somehow appearing in various different locations in an impossibly compressed amount of time (such as the steps of a church and its roof in a matter of seconds). Logic, obviously, is thrown to the wind (to Norris’s question of how his character always seems to know where the terrorists are located, Zito claims to have replied, “Because you’re Chuck”).
The film works primarily because the “dark comic book” tone insisted on by Zito is well maintained. The real-life implications of the premise are played down, with the emphasis on rotgut action (with a threatened romance between Hunter and a sassy photographer played by Melissa Prophet wisely jettisoned early on) and one-liners, of which INVASION U.S.A. contains some of Norris’ best examples, including the immortal utterance “I’m gonna hit you with so many rights, you’re gonna beg for a left!”
Vital Statistics
INVASION U.S.A.
The Cannon Group
Director: Joseph Zito
Producers: Menahem Golan, Yoram Globus
Screenplay: James Bruner, Chuck Norris
Cinematography: Joao Fernandez
Editing: Daniel Leowenthal, Scott Vickrey
Cast: Chuck Norris, Richard Lynch, Melissa Prophet, Alexander Zale, Alex Colon, James O’Sullivan, Billy Drago, Eddie Jones, Jon Devries, Jamie Sanchez, Dehl Berti, Stephen Markle, Shane McCamey, Martin Shakar, James Pax