Hero and the Terror

Directed by William Tannen, Hero and the Terror follows Chuck Norris’ Danny O’Brien as he attempts to stop a maniac (Jack O’Halloran’s Simon Moon) from continuing with his neck-snapping killing spree. It’s compelling subject matter that is, at the outset, employed to entertaining effect by Tannen, as the filmmaker, armed with a script by Dennis Shryack and Michael Blodgett, does a solid job of establishing Norris’ agreeable figure and his grizzled-cop exploits – with the heavy emphasis on Danny’s relationship with his pregnant girlfriend (Brynn Thayer’s Kay) initially faring better than one might’ve anticipated. There’s little doubt, however, that the midsection’s rather padded-out feel, which is reflected most keenly in a long sequence detailing Danny and Kay’s dinner date, slowly-but-surely wreaks havoc on the picture’s forward momentum, and it’s clear, too, that the pronounced lull in the buildup to the climax (eg Danny’s search of Simon within the walls of a theater is fairly endless) ensures that the inevitable fight between Norris and O’Halloran’s respective figures is hardly as exciting or impactful as Tannen has surely intended – which finally does cement Hero and the Terror‘s place as an excessively erratic endeavor that is, at least, watchable from start to finish. (The superb sequence detailing the death of Danny’s cop cohort, Steve James’ Robinson, alone justifies the movie’s existence, ultimately.)

** out of ****