Counterforce never QUITE made the leap from VHS to DVD, but you can find a few copies of the VHS on Amazon, and I recommend doing so.
The Action/Adventure Section
A regular column that will exclusively highlight and review action movies. The most likely suspects? Action cinema of the 1970s and 1980s. But no era will be spurned. As the column grows, the intent will be to re-capture the whimsy of perusing the aisles of your local video store with only ragingly kick ass cover art to aide you in your quest for sweaty action glory. Here we will celebrate the beefy. This is a safe place where we still believe that one lone hero can save humanity by sheer force of will and generous steroid usage.
The Action/Adventure Section has taken a bit of a break in order to focus our efforts on our upcoming hard launch and grand opening celebration coming up September 1st. Keep your eyes out for that, but in the meantime, it is time to bring back a signature column of our site, and I mean to bring it back with a vengeance!
I recently got a chance to raid a fellow geek’s extensive collection of movies ranging from VHS to Blu-ray and I grabbed a handful of titles that just leapt off the shelf at me, much like the great video stores of yore. I chose based solely on star power, title, or cover art. And with my first pick, I appear to have hit pay dirt with Counterforce (1988).
TAGLINE
- In a world of danger there is only one solution.
Directly from the back of the VHS box to your eyeballs, here’s a phenomenal summary:
TIME: Today
PLACE: An island in the Mediterranean
MISSION: Protect an exile and his family from the vengeance of a fierce Middle East dictator
CHANCE OF SUCCESS: Slim to none
UNIT ASSIGNED: COUNTERFORCE
Counterforce is the most chest thumping-ly American film I’ve ever seen that is made by and stars mostly Spaniards, and is shot entirely in Spain. What you’ve got here is a genuine international action film straight out of the video era. IMDb tells me that director J. Anthony Loma had a very long career of writing and directing and this film is one of his later entries. I’m not familiar with any of his other filmography in looking it over, but he succeeded in grabbing my attention with his cast for this film.
What you’ve got here is a Delta Force / A-Team style action film whose cast includes Isaac Hayes, Robert Forster, and George Kennedy among a bunch of other ’80s familiars and international stars of yesterday.
In what is probably the coolest element of the film, you have a super-tough commando unit run by a Latino hunk, named Harris, played by Mexican heartthrob George Rivero. This is another actor I was not familiar with but has over 100 screen credits on IMDb, most notably a role in Rio Lobo alongside John Wayne. Either way, it was refreshing for me, here in 2013, to see a leather-tough Latino leading man. It’s too bad we really haven’t made any progress in the diversification of our leading men (or leading women) today in Hollywood. That said, Counterforce also features Isaac Hayes speaking almost entirely in rhyme, and Robert Forster playing an Arab (which he also did in The Delta Force!? Were casting directors seeing something I’m not seeing? Literally not one thing about Forster says “Arab” to me…) So, while the film features some diversity, it isn’t exactly a progressive take on colorblind casting.
Counterforce has it’s own Col. Trautman/Master Splinter figure in George Kennedy. Then you’ve got the aforementioned Rivero as Harris AKA The Leader. Next, Andrew Stevens (10 To Midnight) plays Nash, The Martial Arts Expert. Isaac Hayes is the oft-rhyming Weapons Expert named Ballard. And finally Flyboy (Kevin Bernhardt) is, reach for it… The Pilot!
The film begins in the midst of a hilarious effort of the United States to interfere in Middle Eastern politics… a phenomenon we know nothing about at all here in 2013. Basically, Forster’s Dictator (that’s his name) records threatening videos speaking ill against America and a banished, freedom-loving, leader named Kassar (Louis Jordan). A bunch of suits in a boardroom see Forster’s video and exclaim: I want this guy dead. And just like that? A soon-to-be botched assassination attempt is greenlit! After this screw up, Forster is certain that the instantly likeable/progressive/Westernized leader Kassar is responsible. Enter The Counterforce (complete with matching outfits that have a Counterforce logo on them).
The bulk of this film is our team of commandos protecting Kassar and his family from relentless assassination attempts. This is a good thing. More often than not, extended action sequences in many of these low budget, international action films are simply too expensive to be the bulk of a movie’s run time. You get a slick set piece or two, an explosive bit of cover art on the front and don’t ask for much more! J. Anthony Loma and his team scoff at this trend, staging shoot out after chase scene after fist fight. Humorously, most of these action scenes would not be necessary if The Counterforce were actually good at providing security on even a basic, common sense level.
In the first major assassination attempt against Kassar, our elite heroes stand around and watch a team of hooded gunmen fire a bevy of bullets at their target before anyone even thinks to pull Kassar off the stage or stand between him and a bullet. Later, at a hospital, there is an extended and quite awesome assassination attempt that involves a dude first getting by Flyboy, just by wearing a lab coat and looking official, while pushing another dude in a wheel chair. There’s a pretty sweet and brutal shootout ending with one assassin on the loose and the wheelchair dude getting chucked out of a window after being used as a meat shield.
Immediately after this our assassin on the loose changes into an Iron Maiden shirt and takes another stab at killing Kassar. The team then gets wise and decides to move him out of the compromised hospital by sending out several dummy cars headed in different directions. Kassar can only be in one car, but which one? There’s a fun extended car chase sequence in which Isaac Hayes kills a bunch of dudes. And, wouldn’t you believe it, The Counterforce totally wins the battle!
But then Kassar’s pesky wife decides that her women’s liberation speech just HAS to be given (please read that last part with a thick sarcastic accent), and then The Counterforce employ their patented “stand nowhere near the subjects you are trying to protect in the event of an assassination attempt” maneuver and Kassar’s wife and son are kidnapped.
This triggers a pretty sweet final action sequence in which the villains are hiding the wife and the son in two different locations. If a rescue attempt is made on either one of them, the other one will be killed. Fortunately, there are totally FOUR members of The Counterforce, so they can split up, synchronize their Swatches, and save the day once again. Each of them might even get a chance to use one of their specialized skills. Oh, and you better believe that the whole team is going to squeeze in time for one sweaty, shirtless, WEIGHT LIFTING SESSION before the big final mission.
Probably the most hilarious element of Counterforce (aside from the weight lifting) is the ending montage, in which, after our team has inflicted crazy damage to Robert Forster’s minions and saved the lives of the enlightened and Westernized Kassar, the people of this unnamed North African country send Forster retreating under house arrest and a totally peaceful transition of power to a Democratic state takes place, lead by the people and for the people. It is an amazing little bookend that we all know happened solely because of how hugely awesome The Counterforce, and by extension America, really are. Maybe copies of Counterforce should be air dropped all around the various countries that are a part of the Arab Spring just to provide a clear cut guide to how America would like them to proceed.
Counterforce is amazing. Anyone who loves the chest-thumping, 1980s elite force action genre would be doing themselves a favor to check out this low rent extravaganza. The ending promises a sequel that never came to be, but they can never take our Counterforce away.
Bonus Feature!
Because I’m just that kind of guy, I have compiled a list of incredible things that Isaac Hayes says over the course of Counterforce’s run time. Keep in mind that most, though not all, of these lines are spoken in rhyme. Oh, and you are welcome:
- Man, that martial arts stuff sure makes it happen, don’t it?
- One karate chop and all the bad guys drop!
- There’s chills and thrills up on this hill and we’re down by law, just don’t get killed.
- Man, you won’t live to see Ramadan.
- Stop your grinnin’ and drop your linen.
- I believe I’ve done enough of this stinkin’, now its time to do some serious drinkin’.
And I’m Out.
Originally published at old.cinapse.co on August 14, 2013.