Invasion U.S.A. (1985)

In my teens I went through a phase where I just couldn't get enough of Chuck Norris. I bought all the movies of his which I could get my hands on, made my karate instructor teach me the spinning hook kick and even read his autobiography. There was however one Norris movie I never got to see before now, 'Invasion U.S.A.' from 1985.

The plot is straight forward. Matt Hunter (Chuck Norris) is a former CIA agent who's living a quiet life in the Florida swamp lands. When a group of international terrorists invades the country and starts launching attacks, he's forced out of retirement. He and the terrorist's leader, Mikhail Rostov, are former enemies and Hunter still haunts Rostov's dreams.

It's as cheesy and awesome as it sounds like, but strangely enough, the premise of the movie is perhaps more current today than when it was made.

Chuck Norris is awesome and the movie really made me travel back to the days when I thought he was the coolest person on the planet. Unfortunately we don't get to see that much of his awesome matrial arts skills in this one, but we do see him dual wielding a couple of mini uzis while wearing a full demin outfit, and that's pretty damn sweet. Richard Lynch with is signature burned face is so creepy. My favourite scene is when he blows upna whole neighbourhood with grenade launcher. It obviously gives him so much joy, and he comes across as a complete psychopath.

In my opinion this might not be the best Norris movie, but it's still very enjoyable. It got some sweet action scenes and got that nice low budget, 80s feeling to it. I'm glad I finally got to see it.