The Delta Force

Inspired by true events, The Delta Force follows a team of elite soldiers, including Chuck Norris’ Scott and Lee Marvin’s Nick, as they set out to rescue more than a hundred hostages after vicious terrorists hijack an airplane. Filmmaker Menahem Golan, working from a screenplay written with James Bruner, delivers an erratic actioner that admittedly does fare best in its sporadically tense first half, as Golan does a reasonably adept job of establishing several key passengers and the threat posed by the violent terrorists – with the passable vibe heightened by the efforts of an eclectic supporting cast that includes Shelley Winters, Martin Balsam, and Robert Forster. (The latter, cast as a Palestinian (!) radical, does manage to bring some depth to an often hilariously one-dimensional role.) It’s equally clear, however, that The Delta Force suffers from a midsection that grows less and less interesting (and more and more interminable) as time progresses, with the decision to move the proceedings away from the aforementioned plane proving disastrous and paving the way for a hopelessly generic second half rife with underwhelming, incompetent action sequences. The woefully unsubtle bent of Golan and Bruner’s screenplay, which seemingly portrays all Palestinians as bloodthirsty barbarians, ultimately cements The Delta Force‘s place as a decidedly irrelevant endeavor, and there’s little doubt, certainly, that the ludicrously overlong running time only exacerbates the picture’s myriad of problems.

*1/2 out of ****