Bullet Points: A Force of One
Last month the good people at Kino Lorber released three special edition Blu-rays of some Chuck Norris classics… 1978’s Good Guys Wear Black, 1980’s The Octagon and the subject of this edition of Bullet Points, 1979’s A Force of One.
My excitement for these releases was two fold… 1. The collector in me could not wait to add these titles to my Chuck Norris Blu-ray collection… 2. They are three Chuck Norris movies I had never seen before. That may sound crazy to some, but my Chuck fandom didn’t really kick into high gear until Chuck’s Cannon years and I’ve seen most of those movies more times than I can count. So what better excuse than a shiny new Blu-ray to check out some of the Chuck movies from the 70s and early 80s that I missed out on…
- It’s Those Damn Drugs: The movie starts out with two undercover narcotic cops keeping a close eye on a skateboard messenger they suspect is delivering some cash to pay for illegal narcotics. When the teenager makes his way into a sporting goods store and comes out with a ski vest, the cops decide to come back that night after closing to do some investigating. That night, they find some drugs inside one of the vests… but they also find themselves dead at the hands of ski mask wearing assassin. The next day, them and their car are being fished out of the bay.
- Get a Clu: We meet Lt. Dunne (Clu Gulager, The Return of the Living Dead) gathers the rest of his narcotics cops together as they try to sort out what happened to their fellow cops… Mandy Rust (Jennifer O’Neill) has a theory that is just crazy enough to be true… what if the cops were attacked and killed by someone with martial arts training!?! Lt. Dunne decides if the drug pushers have martial arts training, maybe his cops should too…
- Let’s Go Up to the Ring: We are introduced to Karate Champion Matt Logan (Chuck Norris, Invasion U.S.A.) in his natural habitat, inside the ring successfully defending his championship. In Matt’s corner is Anderson (played by Chuck’s real life brother Aaron Norris) and Matt’s adopted son Charlie (played by Eric Laneuville, who I will always remember from Sanford & Son). And sitting ringside is the man next in line for a title shot, Sparks (played by Bill “Superfoot” Wallace in his movie debut)… The next day Matt is asked to come down to meet Lt. Dunne, who pitches the idea of training his narcotics cops. Matt mentions his big fight with Sparks coming up and that he really doesn’t have the time… Dunne tries his best to convince Matt that they really need his help, but it is Mandy who ends up getting through to Matt on the drive back to his martial arts dojo.
- This Time It’s Personal: Not only does Matt start teaching the narcotics cop in the art of self-defense, Matt and Charlie also reach to the martial arts community to see if any of them can think of somebody who would be capable of murder. When Charlie decides to check in with Sparks at his private training camp… he ends up getting more than he bargained for. Sparks is the one doing the killing for his boss Melrose and Melrose’s partner, dirty narcotics cop Rollins (Ron O’Neal, Hero and the Terror). Charlie also ends up getting killed! Matt Logan takes the news hard and if he wasn’t fully invested on the war on drugs before, he certainly is now and Matt only gets more determined to take down the baddies after a fight with the masked killer in a back alley!
- The Main Event: Everything culminates at the championship showdown between Matt Logan and Sparks and at this point all the pieces are starting to come together for the cops and it is time to make the bust of all busts… but Sparks isn’t going to make it easy and the action in the ring spills outside, way outside… as in a car chase. The car chase is something I was not expecting and helped elongate the big action finale a bit before the inevitable outcome.
If the rest of the movies on my “Chuck Norris Movies I Have Not Yet Watched” list are even half as good as A Force of One, I am in for some good viewing. A Force of One played to Chuck’s family man strengths, something we’d see again later in his movie career… Jennifer O’Neill was a quality leading lady and the most multi-faceted character in the entire film… The trio of Clu Gulager, Ron O’Neal and Eric Laneuville made for a strong supporting cast and “Superfoot” got his movie career off on the right foot.
Let me foot the bill for these Bonus Bullet Points and give them to you absolutely free of charge…
- Familiar Faces: Charles Cyphers (Death Wish 2 and Escape from New York) played medical examiner Dr. Eppis… Mel Novak (Game of Death and Sword of Heaven) played the ring announcer for the fights… And was that Eric Lee (Fists of Iron and Ninja Busters) I spied as one of the bus boys at the Chinese restaurant? You better believe it!
- One Thing I Didn’t Know: Among the special features on Kino Lorber’s special edition A Force of One Blu-ray are two different commentary tracks. One with action film historians Brandon Bentley and Big Mike Leeder and one with Director Aaron Paul. Paul admitted that his knowledge of Chuck Norris prior to working with him on A Force of One was limited to seeing Chuck battle Bruce Lee when he took his step son to the movies to see his hero Bruce Lee. Aaron Paul’s Bruce Lee loving step son is none other than Keanu Reeves!
- Not Just a Referee: Pat E. Johnson, who is best known as the referee at the All-Valley in Karate Kid, was one of the writers of A Force of One and he also played the referee during Matt Logan’s first fight in the movie.
