Directed by James Fargo
Chuck Norris, Mary Louise Weller, Camila Griggs, Michael Cavanaugh, David Opatoshu, Frank Michael Liu, LeRoy Nicely
Music by William Goldstein

A few weeks ago I enthused about my fondness for Lone Wolf McQuade which may cause you to think I enjoy all Chuck Norris films. Guess again. Forced Vengeance has to feature one of the most wooden performances ever by a lead actor. Not only does Chuck give a crap performance, his lack of emotion and poor dialogue delivery are amplified by a voice-over which runs throughout the length of the film.

I suppose some of the blame should go to director James Fargo. I have a lot of time for Fargo. He may not be a ‘name’ director, but he came up through the ranks, working as assistant director on Joe Kidd, High Plains Drifter, The Eiger Sanction and The Outlaw Josey Wales. You will have noticed that these are all Clint Eastwood movies. And Clint was happy to have Fargo sit in the big boy’s chair too, allowing him to direct The Enforcer and Every Which Way But Loose. So Fargo knows his way around an action scene and in Forced Vengeance he stages a few good ones. And the script is okay too – for this kind of picture – co written by Fargo. And I can’t complain about the location shooting in Hong Kong. Some great images are presented on screen. But the acting is absolutely appalling, which is such a shame, because Fargo has gone to a lot of trouble to get everything else right. Surely it’s the directors job to pull up an actor when his performance is sub-par?

Briefly the plot. Josh Randall (Norris) is like an adopted son to Sam Paschal (David Opatoshu). Paschal is the owner of the Lucky Dragon casino, which is run by his son, David (Frank Michael Liu). Randall acts as head of security for the casino – which means he gets to kick the shit out of any trouble makers. Unfortunately for the Paschal’s, the mob, represented by Stan Raimondi (Michael Cavanaugh) want to buy into the Lucky Dragon casino. The Paschal’s refuse to sell and they are subsequently killed. Now the ownership of the Casino falls to Sam Paschal’s daughter, Joy (Camila Griggs), and naturally the mob want her out of the way too. Randall rushes to her side and drags her from pillar to post as they are chased through the mean streets of Hong Kong.

Forced Vengeance had an opportunity to be a pretty good genre flick – that being a ‘violent martial arts revenge flick’ – but is rendered barely watchable due to a lazy central performance by Norris. Maybe my memory is fading, but I don’t remember Chuck being this bad in A Force Of One or The Octagon. Sure he was pretty raw as an actor, but seemed enthusiastic...but here, well I have already laboured the point. This is crap.

Labels: Stars: Chuck Norris