Hero and the Terror (1988)

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Hero and the Terror (1988)** (out of 4)Danny O'Brien (Chuck Norris) brings down a serial killer labeled by the media as The Terror (Jack O'Halloran), which gets his labeled as Hero. Three years after the event O'Brien is still suffering nightmares and struggling to put his life together but things get a lot worse when The Terror escapes from a mental hospital.HERO AND THE TERROR is a Cannon film that tried to show their star Norris in a new light. The "added" stuff here includes seeing Norris struggle with coming to terms with the killer but there's a very large subplot dealing with his pregnant girlfriend and their upcoming child. The melodrama in the picture actually takes up the majority of the running time, which is too bad because there's a fairly interesting killer here to work with.I never fault any actor trying to go out of the norm and do something different. It's funny that Cannon would have Norris doing some more than kicking butt in this film and especially when you consider that their other star Charles Bronson was trying something new this year too with MESSENGER OF DEATH. Both films have the stars offering up a new thing but it really doesn't work too well here. Norris actually gives a good performance and proves that he can handle the drama but all of this really waters down the story dealing with the serial killer and in the end, this is a Cannon movie after all.The opening sequence actually manages to build up some nice suspense and there's some great one liners coming from Norris. The first forty five minutes or so are actually very entertaining but the film eventually runs out of gas and struggles to get to the conclusion. I think there are several long sequences that just didn't go anywhere including a search of a theater that drags on to the point where you're ready to take a nap. O'Halloran is effective in the role of the killer and it's too bad that there wasn't more of him.HERO AND THE TERROR is a decent movie but not a complete winner.

OK, it's her turn to watch a movie she likes, yet being a man of action you start to have panic attacks just thinking about movies like Xanadu and When Harry met Sally.Well this is it! If you can sleep with one eye open you got it.Good o'l Chuck knows that sometimes we just have to..oh whats the word?? compromise.Well done-some good acting and you get to see Jaws which is cool.You also get to see parts of the theater that you don't usually get to see. I would really like to know just who changes the light bulbs in these crawl spaces.I have seen this in horror movies and no matter how dilapidated the place is there is always light bulbs,who does that?

Years ago, cop Chuck Norris captured serial killer Simon Moon, a.k.a. "The Terror." This made him a local hero dubbed "Hero" by the press. Now The Terror is back and Hero has to stop him. This is a somewhat different movie for Chuck than his other '80s movies. He attempts to play a more layered and sensitive guy this time around. Sure he does spin-kicks and the like, but he also wears sweaters and goes shopping with his pregnant girlfriend Brynn Thayer (one of Matlock's daughters). Jack O'Halloran plays The Terror. Steve James takes time out from being Michael Dudikoff's sidekick in the American Ninja movies to being Chuck's partner here. Billy Drago also appears in a surprisingly non-villainous role. Chuck gets a lot of flack for a variety of reasons but his '80s movies were usually entertaining. This is no exception. It's not high art but it is a fun cop movie.

It has been a year, but even after six months of therapy, Det. Danny O'Brien is still having nightmares about that fight. His therapist, Kay, is more than just his therapist. She's pregnant with his baby and O'Brien wants to marry her.Simon Moon, who killed 22 women, breaks out of Camden State Hospital three years after O'Brien captured him. But the laundry van he stole ran off the road and into the Snake River (wait, if he was in California ... or does California have a Snake River?). His body is never found.A dilapidated neighborhood in Los Angeles may be on its way back after the city spent $14 million on the renovation of a legendary theater. The completion of the project is being celebrated with a big movie premiere. What the people inside don't know is that before the event started, two women were killed in the building. Everything points to Simon Moon, but he's dead. Isn't he?The beginning of the movie made me wonder if this was the sort of thing I could enjoy. But seeing the name of Ben Matlock's gorgeous daughter in the opening credits gave me an incentive to watch. Brynn Thayer isn't that great-looking here, but she is attractive and she has her good moments as an actress. Plus her character is easy to like.Chuck Norris is tough when he has to be, but also quite kind and tender. He did a good job, and I actually liked him. I could see this movie as the pilot for a series (if it had been made recently), but I don't know that I'd watch week after week. Those looking for Norris to display his martial arts skills get one scene where he teaches Victor a lesson.The investigation is interesting, though not that complicated.What I wasn't expecting when I saw the opening was so much comedy. Many of O'Brien's scenes with Kay, the scene where the nervous theater manager tells Betsy she has the job, the scene where Robinson said he would help with the investigation, and part of Robinson's one other scene in the theater. Plus a chase by police that involves O'Brien but has nothing to do with the rest of the plot.The movie is not that violent, except for the nightmare. The killer (whose face we don't see) breaks people's necks, which isn't pleasant to watch, but it's not bloody.It was good for a TV-movie. Average for a theatrical production.