A Force of One

release year: 1979
genre: martial arts drama
viewing setting: home VHS, 7/18/04

synopsis: A karate instructor/competitor is asked to help the police figure out who keeps killing their narcotics officers.

impressions: Basic bad-cops-and-drugs plot with some martial arts and murders thrown in. Once again, Chuck Norris fails to leap into action until someone close to him is killed, when he could have prevented it if he'd acted sooner. More interesting is the fact that this movie came before the big martial-arts boom in our society...a time when karate experts were considered strange and suspicious, and their dojos were basically frowned upon.

something this movie has that no other movie has: a karate killer who targets cops

acting: Chuck Norris did okay, his character showing dedication to his training as well as his family. Jennifer O'Neill (the female lead from Scanners) was good as one of the non-crooked cops. The guy who played the police chief sure did mumble a lot.

final word: Good but not great Chuck Norris action.

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