Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection (1990)

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Blistering performances.

The acting in this movie is really good.

I have a lot of time for Chuck Norris—he was the star of the first martial arts film I ever saw—but in '80s action hero hierarchy, the karate champ is strictly second tier, along with the likes of Van Damme, Seagal, and Lundgren. The reason for this is simple: he signed up with Cannon Films, whose action films were largely cheesy, gung-ho nonsense made on limited budgets—the kind of movies that got rented when there were no more copies of the latest Sly or Arnie film available. As Sly and Arnie's films got bigger and better, Chuck's simply stagnated.Delta Force 2 is a fairly typical Cannon/Norris effort—a loud, dumb, explosive piece of jingoistic nonsense in which Chuck plays Col. Scott McCoy, who vows to bring despicable South American drug-lord Ramon Cota (Billy Drago) to justice for killing DEA agent Bobby Chavez (Paul Perri) and his family. Travelling to the fictional South American country of San Carlos (NOT Colombia), McCoy scales a sheer rock-face, shoots numerous nameless henchmen while avoiding rocket launchers, survives certain death by gas chamber, takes on Cota's best fighter while spouting corny one-liners, and single handedly apprehends Cota, before fate intervenes and gives the sneering, baby-killing, rapist, cocaine baron his just desserts.Directed by Chuck's brother Aaron, this is formulaic and predictable stuff, but still manages to be slightly more entertaining than the first Delta Force movie, which couldn't decide whether to be a gripping hostage drama or a silly action flick. At least this one knows what it wants to be.

The DEA is hot on the trail of Ramon Cota (Drago) - an extremely evil (and extremely rich) drug lord. He controls whole Colombian towns with threats, murder, and intimidation. DEA agent John Page (Jaeckel) is in over his head, so he calls in the best - Col. Scott McCoy (Norris) - to help take down Cota once and for all. When Cota attacks the wrong people - people close to McCoy - things become personal and McCoy brings all the force he has to bring down Cota and his organization.Sure, Chuck Norris has no emotion but there is none needed. At least he can do martial arts, unlike other emotionless actors like Kip Pardue and Ryan O'Neal. They have no physical skills, range, OR screen presence. So if one of those three choices have to be sacrificed, at least for action cinema, you can lose the emotional range. On the other end of the spectrum, in a career of playing villains, this is one of Billy Drago's best. He's sinister and menacing, as he usually is, but his portrayal of Cota is scary and downright sadistic. Drago did a great job once again.John P. Ryan gives an energetic (some might say over the top) performance as General Taylor, and he makes some priceless faces along the way. This role could have been played by Dennis Hopper or even Terence Stamp, but Ryan gives it some extra, A-Team-like wackiness. Also it should be noted that an evil General (isn't there always an evil General?) that's working with Cota, Gen. Olmedo (Margolis) looks exactly like nutty politician Ron Paul. It's really funny every time he pops up on screen in his General's uniform, because anyone's first instinct would be to yell "That's Ron Paul!" It would have been nice to see more members of the Delta Force team from the first film, especially Steve James. He was probably busy working on a Dudikoff film at this time. (Actually, both men were slated to be in an early incarnation of this film). And once behind "enemy lines", trying to attack Cota's stronghold in "San Carlos", the action becomes very dumb. Let's not forget Aaron Norris directed this particular Cannon production.While this movie was shot in large part in the Philippines, that great filming haven for action movies, the plot becomes dangerously close to an "El Presidente" movie. (Please see our review for ??? where we coin the term and explain what it is, if you don't already know). Perhaps needlessly taking a cue from the first Delta Force film, this sequel is unnecessarily long. There's no reason for that. But the training sequence and Chuck-Fu are what make this movie worth seeing, when you get right down to it.Featuring the song "Winds of Change" by Lee Greenwood, Delta Force 2 isn't a life-changer, but it's a good entry in Chuck's canon.

DELTA FORCE 2 was one of the first Chuck Norris movies I ever watched and it's stayed with me: a silly, completely OTT B-movie full of gunfire, explosions and cheap and cheerful special effects work. I recently revisited the movie on DVD, and I was pleased to find it still holds up to this day as one of the star's most simple yet entertaining films.I still haven't seen the original film, not that that matters: DELTA FORCE 2 is a standalone outing concerning a soldier's battles to take out a Colombian drug lord responsible for the death of his friend. There's nothing more to it than that, and much of the film is clearly modelled on the likes of Schwarzenegger's COMMANDO and Stallone's RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART 2. It's nowhere near as good as either of those, thanks to the lower budget, but it still packs a punch.Norris is in his element. He's hulking, tough, good looking and a nice guy with it. The type of hero it's easy to root for. He roundhouse kicks the bad guys, jumps through windows, breaks limbs and metes out punishment to both enemy soldiers and the new recruits unlucky enough to be placed under his charge. He also adds in a few quips here and there, which always helps.Opposite Norris, Billy Drago stars in what is still one of his most memorable roles as an utterly slimy drug baron. Drago is outrageously evil in this film, truly hissable. I won't spoil the ending, but let's just say it's the perfect pay-off for his character. Alongside Norris, we get John P. Ryan (IT'S ALIVE), chewing up the scenery a treat as the flag-waving general. Pretty Begona Plaza is thrown into the mix, just because there aren't any other women around.What follows is a mix of the usual action/hero type scenes: Chuck scales an impassable cliff, Chuck kills some henchmen, there's a helicopter battle and lots of jeeps being blown up. Plus, of course, the shoot-out in a jungle village, one of those stock scenes that just had to be every jungle action film of the 1980s (the only thing missing is a prison camp complete with guard tower). It's all lively and amusing, even if we had already seen it all before throughout the '80s, so my advice is to kick back and enjoy – without criticising too much!

Let me put it forward. I didn't think all that much of the original, and that's exactly the same on this one. However for some enjoyable, light-headed entertainment it passed the buck for me, compared with the first outing. The two films couldn't be anything but different though. The first featured heavily on political terrorists, as this one plays out more like a comic-book revenge story with the drug cartel in his sights. Even though he's still apart of 'The Delta Force', this time Norris goes it alone, and tackles South American drug lords led by an impressively juicy and vicious Billy Drago bad guy performance of utter evilness and slime. Norris' personal, easy-going turn, is less mechanical to his first showing of the McCoy character.Now this one was full-throttle from the get-go, and looked like it had a sizable budget. The gritty action is furious, and at times unpleasant. Just look at some of those remarkably creative stunt works involving an intense rock climb and thrilling sky dive. Some of the potent camera work neatly dons some sharp angles, and works in the jungle locations to great effect. There are explosions. Big ones. Numerous ones. Norris is that hard to kill, that they use a grenade launcher to stop him. Alas with no prevail. And you gotta love the inter-cutting slow-motion. Aaron Norris (yep Chuck's brother) directs by throwing caution to the wind, and while it's not first-rate handling and freshly organised. He demonstrates enough to keep you watching, and lets it tick along. The material is the real weak point. The bloated screenplay is covered with coincidences, and dialogues are fairly leaden. The rest of the performances are a can of worms. John P Ryan gleefully hams it up as Gen. Taylor and Richard Jeckal skews in as a determined DEA Agent. The beautiful Begona Plaza is appealingly good too.I was expecting worse of this sequel. Pure tempo-laced b-action fun, where the cold stare of Drago steals the show.