Tweet
Released by: Kino Studio Classics
Released on: December 8th, 2015.
Director: Aaron Norris
Cast: Chuck Norris, John P. Ryan, Billy Drago, Richard Jaeckel, Mark Margolis
Year: 1990
Purchase From Amazon
The Movie:
Directed by Aaron Norris, Chuck's younger brother, for Cannon Films in 1990 to, of course, take advantage of the box office success of the first film, Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection is good old-fashioned ultra-violent fun in the grand Golan-Globus tradition.
The plot is not deep, but it is efficient. In a nutshell, a big time drug dealer named Ramon Cota (Billy Drago) is not above murdering people to get what he wants and when he's paying off General Olmedo (Mark Margolis), he doesn't worry too much about repercussions. When he has a father and son duo killed to ease his ability to get his filthy poison into the United States, there's only one man with balls big and brassy enough to do something about it - Colonel Scott McCoy (Chuck Norris).
At first, McCoy tries to do it through the courts, but he quickly realizes that it isn't going to work that way. Cota is Teflon, nothing sticks to him and he walks out a free man. But see, McCoy and his crew, they know that he did it and when McCoy's partner Bobby (Paul Perri) loses his cool, things don't go well for him. Cota is pissed and now they look bad. Before you know it, the wife and child of McCoy's partner are dead and the partner is out on a mission of revenge. But that too ends poorly, and once his partner is dead, McCoy, with some help from General Taylor (John P. Ryan), knows he's got to do what he's got to do… which involves going to the jungles of Columbia where McCoy is based and killing a lot of people, but not before Cota takes a small crew of American soldiers hostage!
This second film in the series (a third and final entry would follow in 1991 without Chuck Norris but featuring his son Mike Norris alongside other 'famous sons' like Nick Cassavetes, Eric Douglas and Matthew Penn) follows Cannon's formula of the day to a T. Give us some despicable bad guys from a foreign land to hate, add a flag waving 'real American hero' to cheer for, season with healthy (I almost used the word liberal but that would be wrong when discussing this movie) doses of mass slaughter and serve sans brains at an appropriately hot temperature (we are dealing with the jungles of Columbia after all). There's no rocket science here, just a lean, mean plot that gets pretty much right to the point and that is wise enough to keep Norris' dialogue at a minimum so that we can focus on his strengths in the action department. He does what he does here well, never even coming close to stretching as an actor but using his likably wooden screen presence well to offer up a few quips, the odd slice of snappy dialogue and plenty of brawny, hairy machismo.
The rest of the cast are also pretty fun. Margolis and Drago are as slimy as bad guys get, each man clearly having a lot of fun in their respective villainous role while Perri does a decent enough job as McCoy's partner. John P. Ryan steals a few scenes as Norris' superior officer and hey, check out old school tough guy Richard Jaeckel as a DEA agent - never a bad idea to put him in a movie like this.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection arrives on Blu-ray from Kino in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer from in the film's original aspect ratio of 1.85.1. Colors are reproduced quite well here and they look consistently natural, as do skin tones. Some shots are a little softer than others but that would appear to be how the movie was shot. Detail is pretty solid and the image is remarkably clean from start to finish. You'll notice film grain, as you should, but no serious print damage, whatever elements were used were obviously in good shape. Black levels are pretty solid here and there are no problems at all with any edge enhancement or noise reduction. Yeah, this will do. Avenging Force looks very nice on Blu-ray.
The only audio option for the feature is an English language Stereo track presented in DTS-HD lossless format. There are no alternate language options, subtitles or closed captions provided. There are no issues here, this track is just fine. Balance is good, depth and range are solid and the dialogue and score both sound quite nice. No issues with any hiss or distortion to note.
Extras are limited to static menus, chapter stops and the inclusion of the film's original theatrical trailer.
The Final Word:
Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection is more of a 'Chuck Norris killing people in the jungle' movie than it is a military team style picture like the first one was, but it's plenty entertaining and the back and forth between Norris and Drago is pretty amusing. There's solid action here and this is good, brainless fun. Kino's Blu-ray is light on extras but it does look and sound quite nice. Recommended for fans of big, dumb, macho eighties cinema!
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
