Josh Keown | Night Terror Novels 🧛🏻♂️’s review published on Letterboxd:
“Sleep tight, sucker.”
-Maj. Scott McCoy (Chuck Norris)
Today, Sunday 17th March 2013, was set to be just another day. Just another typical, lazy Sunday. But today wasn’t an ordinary Sunday. It’ll all started this morning, when I finally decided to get my lazy ass up. As I laboriously slithered out of bed at precisely 10.51AM, I realised two things. The first was that there was no fucking milk in the house for my breakfast, and the second was that I could and probably should spend today actually doing something of consequence. I could have solved both problems then and there, but didn’t. Instead I decided to do something insane, something so inadvisably stupid even Peter from Family Guy would hesitate.
I watched my first Chuck Norris movie.
Why, you ask, would I do such a terrible, terrible thing? I could give ya million answers, but none of them would be true. To be honest, I don’t really know why I went and did it; perhaps I’m just a twisted kind of guy. The story went something like this – Terrorist Robert Forster dressed in the most hideously flamboyant attire and his pal Mufasa (Oh, Mustafa) hijack a plane. Cue Chuck Norris, part of the Delta Squad tasked with their rescue. Madness and mayhem ensues, as well as your typical pro-America (fuck yeah!) gung-ho saving the world-from-devil-spawn-evil terrorists attitude all these old 80’s actioners have. Oh, and the compulsory awful theme song that comes as part of the package.
The cast is far better than your average Seagal/van Damme/Norris movie, with the likes of Lee Marvin, Robert Forster and Joey Bishop elevating proceedings. Plus, cool fact, second hardest man in the whole entire history of forever Liam Neeson stars in a small role. The biggest problem was its identity crisis; the first half was a tense drama/thriller, the second that standard all-out mindless action fare. What is left is a mixed bag, unsure what it wants to be with a fairly promising first half almost crippled by the Michael Bay bullshit towards the end. But hey, I wasn’t really expecting to decipher the meaning of life in a film like this…
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It’s been an hour or so now since my harrowing ordeal, and I’m still all shook up. I’m sat here, drinking my milkshake and regretting this whole sordid affair. If you reading this, I probably cracked. I ain’t sure I’m gonna pull through this time.
VERDICT; Okay, I’m joking. This is actually one of the better testosterone-fuelled adrenaline rollercoasters I’ve been on. The acting is dodgy, sure, the music completely awful; but there is both plot and character development to make it watchable. An enjoyable, if overlong and completely ludicrous, way to kill a couple of spare hours.
3/5 or 6/10