Invasion U.S.A.
by Joseph Zito
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Actor: Alex Colon, Alexander Zale, Chuck Norris, Melissa Prophet, Richard LynchDirector: Joseph Zito
Brand: Sony
Writer: Chuck Norris
Cinematographer: Joćo Fernandes
Editor: Daniel Loewenthal
Producer: Menahem Golan
Producer: Yoram Globus
Writer: Aaron Norris
Writer: James Bruner
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 107 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-11-20
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
DVD Reviews of Invasion U.S.A.
DVD Review: One night you'll close your eyes, and when they open I'll be there.
Summary: 4 Stars
A bunch of Cuban refugees, on a boat drifting in the ocean, with no food, no water, no hope. Suddenly, a Coast Guard vessel! They are saved! But unfortunately, as the vessel draws near, we see that it is captained by professional bad guy Richard Lynch, and that cannot bode well. As indeed it does not, for the "Coast Guard" suddenly opens fire on the refugees, wiping them all out in seconds, and soon uncovers the other cargo the boat is carrying - white powder. But somehow these guys don't look like "regular" drug smugglers, so as the credits start rolling and the thunderous, Wagnerian music by Jay Chattaway (which also sounds at times a lot like Basil Poledouris' music for CONAN THE BARBARIAN) starts playing, it isn't hard to guess that these guys mean bad business for the good ol' red, white and blue. Good thing CHUCK NORRIS is on the scene to save the world - or at least the part of it that matters, Florida.
I haven't seen a whole lot of Chuck's filmography up to this point; certainly I'm less familiar with him than most of his rough action contemporaries like Stallone, Schwarzeneggar, Van Damme and Seagal. It's not so much because his right-wing politics turn me off; heck if that were a problem, I'd be best off not be watching many American action films to begin with. Nope, it's mostly circumstance, and the fact that to me ol' Chuck - regardless of the power of his fabled roundhouse kick - just ain't as compelling a presence to me as the others. I'm not sure how much INVASION U.S.A. is going to change my mind, but regardless of how "good" or "bad" it is, it's more fun than not, and Chuck proves to be able to throw out the one-liners as well as his kicks.
Here he's retired CIA special operative "Hunter" (what else?) living in the Everglades region in a broken-down shack, but when Mikhail Rostov (Lynch) and his henchmen show up on the scene, his ex-boss comes begging - and is shown the door. It isn't until Rostov and a dozen of his goons wipe out Hunter's shack and kill his best buddy that he decides it's time to get back in the action - and just in the nick of time, as it turns out that Rostov is masterminding a plot to strike terror into the heart of the country by simultaneously hitting civilian targets in several major cities and creating chaos, forcing martial law. What he ultimately hopes to gain from this is never made explicit; I guess Chuck - who cowrote the screenplay from a story that was cowritten by his brother Aaron, and probably deserves to be considered the real "auteur" here as much as director Joseph Zito - felt it was just enough to have a bunch of Russian and other non-American thugs attacking us soft Americans to make the plot work. Well, uh, no, it really wasn't enough. In any case, after several scenes of mayhem in which the evil smirking Rostov and his teams are seen randomly blowing up houses and shooting up restaurants and such, Chuck finally arrives on the scene. It's almost halfway through the movie at this point, unfortunately, but better late than never. And Chuck quickly makes up for it by saving a church full of people from a bomb (and then dropping it onto the would-be bombers from a three-story building, having plenty of time for a nice soliloquy as they don't bother to draw their automatic weapons on him or anything even though he's holding the bomb); saves a schoolbus from getting blown up; and stops a bunch of bad guys as they're shooting and blowing up a mall. He sure gets around; he also makes time to save a cute hot-shot reporter (Melissa Prophet) several times - she also manages to be on the scene over and over. But it just isn't enough - and so Chuck hatches the ultimate plan....
I don't expect a whole lot of believability from most action movies, but INVASION U.S.A. shreds logic to the point where calling it a fantasy as much as an action movie would be entirely appropriate - and the best way to enjoy it. First, like I said, Chuck is on the scene over and over, without showing any real indication of how he knows each spot the terrorists are going to hit. It's like he has a terrorism GPS in the jeep he drives around (which never suffers a scratch through most of the film, despite being fired on by machine guns repeatedly) - more than a decade before GPS even existed of course. And Chuck gets through every scrape completely and totally without a scratch. His dang wavy hairdo never even gets messed up, and his clothes never get ripped. Maybe there's a smudge or two of dirt a couple of times, that's about it. And then, of course, there's the notion that local police - even the National Guard and (one would hope) the Army and Marines - can do nothing about a few dozen small terrorist groups all over the country, but Chuck alone can clean up Miami and also mastermind a plan at the end to bring ALL of the terrorists to one location in a trap that none of them will figure out. Well, that's Chuck Norris I guess - not content to be the winner, he has to be a virtual Superman. The problem with this is that it drains every ounce of real suspense from the film knowing that he isn't even going to so much as get a scratch, and that no matter what the odds he will always come through. One Chuck with a couple of guns is a match for armies. And by implication, one tough American can wipe out all the Commie hordes in the world. Then again - if you're not taking it seriously at all, maybe it's not so much of a problem. I know I was laughing plenty by the crazy over-the-top ending.
On the good side - as opposed to the so-bad-it's-good - there is some decent Florida location work here, and Lynch is kind of fun as the embodiment of absolute and total evil (shooting kids in the head while laughing, that kind of thing), and there are some nice explosions. Actually lots of nice explosions. I think they must have spent about half the budget on explosions. And the rest on Chuck's hair.
Description of Invasion U.S.A.
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