Bullet Points: Operation Delta Force

Operation Delta Force has no direct connection to 1986’s The Delta Force but one can’t help but feel like it is the illegitimate distant cousin to the Cannon produced film starring Chuck Norris. And for good reason…

Operation Delta Force was executive produced by Avi Lerner, a man who cut his teeth working on Cannon films like American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt, Allan Quartermain and the Lost City of Gold and Gor. The movie was directed by Sam Firstenberg, one of Cannon’s go to guys and the man who helmed Cannon classics like Revenge of the Ninja, American Ninja 2: The Confrontation and Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo…

• Who Ya Gonna Call?: Major Tipton (Ernie Hudson, Trapper County War) arrives at the United Nations Virus Research Center in Mozambique to pick up a vile of anti-serum to take back to Washington D.C. But some surprises await Tipton… the first surprise is when Tipton finds out that he will actually be transporting two viles back to D.C. (The contents of the second vile are on a need to know basis and apparently Tipton doesn’t need to know) …the second surprise is much worse, as the U.N. Virus Research Center is attacked by a terrorist group led by Johan Nash (Joe Lara, Doomsdayer). Nash and his men manage to get the very viles that Tipton was tasked to pick up and kill everyone at the Research Center in the process… everyone except Major Tipton, who went into John McClane mode… sneaking around, taking out a few of the bad guys and even destroying Nash’s helicopter transport. Now Nash and his evil army have to find an alternate method to get the viles back to their leader, General West and they are going to have to do it fast because the Delta Force is on the way.

• Friendly Fire: When the Delta Force led by Captain Lang (Jeff Fahey, Parker Kane) arrive in Mozambique sparks immediately start to fly. We learn that Captain Lang’s brother was actually killed by Major Tipton years earlier in a friendly fire accident… which took Tipton off the battlefield and into the laboratory. Needless to say Lang is not a fan of having to coexist with the man that killed his brother. The team also learns they will be joined by a South African operative… HER name is Lt. Marie Junger (Natasha Sutherland). Not everyone on the team is happy about the inclusion of a female on the mission… with the most vocal being McKinney (Frank Zagarino, Without Mercy).

• Doing The Job: Bad blood and personal feelings aside, there is a job to be done and Captain Lang is ready to get that job done. The team springs into action when they find out Nash and his men have taken control of a commuter train. When the first attempt to stop Nash and the train on a bridge doesn’t go as planned, the Delta Force switches to Plan B and try to trap Nash and the train inside a tunnel… that almost works but Nash, his men and the viles manage to escape on foot through an old gold mine that was connected to the train tunnel… things are not panning out for our heroes… and they are about to get worse.

• One Out of Two Ain’t Bad: After a showdown in a local village with Nash and his fellow terrorists, our heroes manage to get one of the two viles before Nash once again escaped. And we find out it was the up to this point mysterious second vile… a vile that contained the virus that the anti-serum was developed to destroy. The problem is the vile was damaged during all the action and the inhabitants of the village and our heroes have been infected. News spreads quickly of the outbreak in the village and the Washington brass are planning on using drastic measures to put a lid on all of this in the form of firebombing the hell out of the village and the surrounding area… including the Delta Force! The only way Captain Lang, Major Tipton, McKinney, Lt. Junger and the rest of the good guys are going to survive is if they go against direct orders and continue to pursue Nash and retrieve the anti-serum that will cure them and stop the spread of the virus before it becomes a worldwide epidemic!

Operation Delta Force followed a familiar action movie path until the twist at the end with our heroes getting infected. I didn’t see that wrinkle coming and it immediately gave the movie a few bonus points in my book.

Now allow me to give you a few Bonus Bullet Points…

• Familiar Face: In a rare action movie appearance, Hal Holbrook plays Admiral Henshaw, the man giving Captain Lang his orders from afar and working as the middleman between the Delta Force and the fat cats in Washington.
• Wanna Be Starting Something: Operation Delta Force was the start of a franchise that would spawn four sequels… each featuring different casts. Although Joe Lara would return for the fourth installment seemingly playing the character Frank Zagarino played in the original.
• Preach Zags Preach: “I fucking hate politics” – McKinney