****SPOILERS**** "Delta Force" begins in the darkness of the Iranian desert at "Desert One" on April 25, 1980 with the disastrous attempt to rescue the US hostages in Teheran. The movie then goes ahead to the summer of 1985 where a passenger plane with some 200 persons, mostly Americans, is skyjacked on a flight from Rome to Athens. It's there where the Delta Force redeems itself from what happened to it that dark April morning five years before.
Based loosely on the TWA 847 skyjacking and brutal beating and murder of Navy diver Robert Stethem "Delta Force" takes some liberties on the historical facts of that event. Like the movies of WWII that were made to uplift the American public "Delta Force" far more succeeds then fails in it's message that it's was trying the bring to those here in the USA and elsewhere on Americas, as well as the free worlds, "War on Terrorism" back then in 1986.
Admittedly over-the-top heroics by the Delta Force especially Maj. McCoy & Col. Alexender Chuck Norris & Lee Marvin. Who I think is the real hero, in the movie and in what really happened in real life on that plane, is the planes German stewardess Ingrid, Hanna Schygulia. Ingrid in real life showed more courage, as well as kindness and humanity, under pressure from the terrorists on the plane then the whole Delta Force combined showed in the make believe of the skyjacking and phony action scenes in the film.
High tension and terror in the sky as well as on land as a passenger plane is skyjacked by a gang of Arab terrorists. The Terrorists are led by their leader Abdul,Robert Foster, who threatens to blow up the plane and passengers inside unless the Israelis releases hundreds of terrorist that they have incarcerated.
Trying to get the terrorists to let at least the women and children go free the Delta Force tries to storm the plane when it lands in Algeria for re-fueling. At the same time there's a new group of terrorist entering the plane to reinforce those that are already there.
Navy diver Pete Peterson, William Wallace, who was brutally beaten to the point where he was almost dead is shot in the head and dumped on the tarmac in retaliation of the Delta Force attempted rescue. It's when the plane lands in Beirut that the real action begins and it's there where the Delta force, with the help of Israeli commandos, save the day and in the end rack this one up for the good guys.
Heart pounding and effective movie about the good guys giving it back to the terrorist in a movie that was made some 15 years ahead of it's time, September 11, 2001, that shows if you mess with Uncle Sam you'll only get burned in the end. Chuck Norris & Lee Marvin are great as the Delta Force team-leaders in some of the most enthusiastic action scenes you've ever seen in a war movie since WWII. Lee Marvin looks too old for the role of a hard as nails Delta Force soldier, he was 62 at the time and looked like he was about 80, but his reputation as a tough guy easily made you overlook that fact. "Delta Force" was Lee's last movie.
Chuck Norris was at the top of his game with his martial arts fighting chopping up the terrorists and his unbelievable motorbike that has machine guns mounted on it and rocket launched from it's front engines and back exhaust, do they really have something like that in the US military? Chuck & Lee made the terrorists see what real red-blooded American hero's can really do when they gets really p**sed off.
George Kennedy was very good as Father O'Malley, one of the passengers on the plane, who showed the terrorists that his faith can withstand anything that they believe in any day of the week. There was so much "Ham Acting" on the plane it made the movie in spite of most of it's subjects political and religious feelings, Arab and Israeli, look treyfe, un-Kosher in Yiddish.
You just can't dislike "Delta Force" despite it's over-the-top and unbelievable heroics on the part of the good guys because you just can't help rooting for them. As for the terrorists their so bad and vicious in what they do in the movie and so unlikeable that even their mothers would have a hard time finding anything good to say about them.
The movie has a feel for that time, the 1980's, with the terrorist praising as well as having posters and pictures of the Ayatollah Khomeini who was the #1 enemy of America back in 1986, like Osama Bin-Laden is now. In fact it seems now after the tragic attacks of September 11, 2001 that the movie "Delta Force" has gotten re-discovered by thousands of movie fans who want to see the terrorists who engineered that assault on America get theirs even if it's only in the movies.
