Invasion U.S.A./Review
From The Grindhouse Cinema Database
< Invasion U.S.A.
Back in the 80's, the chill of The Cold War started again in movies. There were lots of movies made that told us what would've happened if Soviets invaded or shot nuclear missiles at the USA. So Cannon, the company that's famous for making B-movies jumped on this bandwagon by making Invasion USA the super patriotic film that has everything that defines the country such as cowboy shirts and fighting against foreign terrorism. It has everything except the national anthem.
The plot concerns Matt (Chuck Norris), a retired CIA agent that has to return to his old job again to fight TONS of Communist terrorists (led by a Soviet guy) that kill lots of innocent people and blow up lots of buildings. Now, let me ask you a question here: why do the Communists want to invade the USA? To conquer the country? To show the world that we are the best? Why don't you just shoot a nuclear missile into the USA? It's easier and more effective.
While terrorists invade the USA in disguise (as a police/army) I noticed many things that made it cheesier and cheesier. First, there's a scene in which a couple are making love and then get killed by a Communist. It's more like a slasher film than an action movie, you know? the "have sex then die" cliche. After I found out that the director of this film was Joseph Zito the guy who brought us Friday The 13th Pt 4: The Final Chapter (which is one of my favorite F-13th films), I was not surprised by this scene at all. Next, we have a journalist named McGuire. She's very annoying because she always call Matt a "cowboy". Come on! Could you just ask him his name? It reminded me of the main antagonist Hans in Die Hard that called John McClane "Mr. Cowboy". Also, her acting is hilariously bad! I love it.
Luckily, the action scenes in this film are awesome and memorable. For example, the mall shootout scene and the ending are totally kick ass. I'm pretty sure that this is the reason why this film became a cult classic and pretty much sums up everything in the Cold War era.
This is another propaganda film from The Cold War era, but who cares? It's awesome!
Nuttawut Permpithak hails from Thailand. He spends his free time watching exploitation films (or any films from the past) writing articles, taking photos and reviewing films for GCDb.
