Underachieving stars Michael Pare and Jan-Michael Vincent try to infuse DEADLY HEROES with rousing patriotism. But most of the time, they simply glower unflinchingly as if to compensate for the fruity overacting of Billy Drago, who plays the villain.
While vacationing with her family in Athens, Marcy Cartowski (Claudette Mink), wife of Navy SEALs officer Brad Cartowski (Pare), is kidnapped by terrorists and forced onto a hijacked plane, full of innocent travelers. In exchange for the hostages, a trio of Libyan villains, Antonio (Juliano Mer),
Alya (Galit Gait), and Patrick (Alon Aboutboul), demand the release of their leader, Carlos (Drago), who is being held by the US. Forced to comply, Brad's old buddy, Navy SEAL captain Cody Grant (Vincent), deposits Carlos in Athens. Carlos liberates all of the plane captives--except Marcy. While
loathsome Carlos rapes Marcy on a regular basis, Brad and Cody play vigilante, as the cautious US government is slow to unseat Carlos's power base in North Africa.
With the help of freedom-loving cabby Barudi (Gabi Amrani), Brad locates the harbor leading to Carlos's island fortress. But Antonio executes Barudi and imprisons Brad, whose incarceration on Carlos Island proves an embarrassment to Uncle Sam. Brad and Cody try--and fail--to free Marcy, and they
are forced to flee the island stronghold without her. The Pentagon finally agrees to support Cody's rescue strategy, but only because they think that Brad still is being held prisoner. With the compliance of their former Navy SEALs chief, Vice Admiral Steve Burns (John Phillips), Cody and Brad
deploy with enough devastating hardware and SEALs warriors to infiltrate Carlos's secret hideout. Although Carlos's men crumble under the force of the SEALs' onslaught, surviving Carlos prepares vindictively to slice up his degraded mistress, Marcy. Ace marksman Brad shoots Carlos in the skull.
With seconds to spare, Brad, Cody, Marcy, and the Navy specialists exit the explosive-rigged terrorist island, which gets blown to kingdom come.
Either the director or the 2nd unit director deserves applause for the dynamic action sequences seen here. Despite the sporadic blur of accents, DEADLY HEROES makes the most of its international flavor as it delivers a civics lesson on the expediencies of superpowers. So what's wrong with this
stunt-powered action pic? Its irritating gung-ho patriotism and its lip-smacking preoccupation with Marcy's abduction into white slavery. Like the Navy SEALs personnel it sanctifies, DEADLY HEROES gets the job done, but the film deserves no distinguished service medal. (Graphic violence, extreme
profanity, adult situations, sexual situations.) leave a comment
