"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Lone Wolf McQuade

“Forget it, kid. I work alone.”

You guys know I’m not really big on Chuck Norris. I know, Chuck Norris is so powerful that blah blah blah, something something beard something fist. Good job, internet. Hilarious. He’s famous enough to be considered one of the iconic action stars, but in my opinion he is not on the same level as other Expendables such as Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Willis, Van Damme or non-Expendable Seagal. He doesn’t have as much charisma or as many watchable movies. But I did really dig INVASION U.S.A. and I always heard LONE WOLF MCQUADE was his best or one of his best, so I thought I should watch it in the lead up to his appearance in EXPENDABLES 2: ALSO VAN DAMME.

And it’s true, this one is worth watching. It’s stupid, but I liked it. Norris plays rule-breaking slob and Texas Ranger J.J. McQuade. The mostly dialogue-free opening introduces (and probly oversells) his larger-than-life heroism, as he squints and spies on horse thieves from a distance through his rifle scope. The state police come in and try to bust the thieves, but they’re overpowered until McQuade starts shooting and single-handedly defeats the bad guys and rescues everybody because of how awesome he is, etc. Maybe the internet was right about that one. The authentically Morricone-esque score by Francesco De Masi (THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS) makes it all seem more operatic than, say, DELTA FORCE or SIDEKICKS.

But it’s not a western. McQuade drives into El Paso in his truck that looks like it’s never been washed. Sitting in the audience at a public event covered in dirt he gets looks from the cops next to him, suggesting that he probly smells like ass.

Is he really a lone wolf? It would be easy to be, because of the smell. And because his house is about three years away from appearing on Hoarders, and his favorite hobby is rolling around shirtless in his backyard shooting at dummies he made. He gets chewed out by his boss who says that being a Texas Ranger is not just about single-handedly smashing a ring of horse bandits and saving the lives of several abducted police officers in one afternoon, it’s also about going to church on Sunday and having a wife and kids. At first I thought this was code for “I’m tired of you being gay and pro marriage equality, McQuade,” since J.J. has a loyal mustachioed cowboy life partner played by L.Q. Jones (just like Seagal had in THE PATRIOT) and since there’s a scene where he gets mad that a beautiful woman shows up at his house and starts cleaning it for him, and since he’s separated from his wife but on good terms with her and since it would be funny if a bigot like Norris was forced by liberal Hollywood to make movies that favored… oh my god, I might throw up… tolerance. But I’m probly (purposely) reading too much into this.

He’s also friends with Mexicans in this one, even protecting one from racists. And they like him back. In fact when he arrives in a Mexican town the women immediately gather around his truck and put flowers on it like they’re worshipping him. I wonder if this not happening to him in real life is the reason why Norris is so worried about Mexicans getting into the country.

Anyway, his boss makes him have a partner (Robert Beltran), Dirty Harry style, who wins him over by typing a password into a computer, which McQuade mistakes for being really good with computers. Later McQuade also teams up with an FBI agent (Leon Isaac Kennedy from the PENITENTIARY trilogy), and they all work together and seem to like and respect each other, plus he has his daughter and new girlfriend and sometimes spends time with his ex-wife (which I think is cool, you don’t see that in too many movies).

My point is that he doesn’t always work alone. And they never call him “Lone Wolf” in the movie, but he does have a pet wolf that he never calls by a name. What I’m getting at is that the wolf must be the Lone Wolf McQuade of the title. L.W. for short. Alot of people don’t get that. If they did then the part where the wolf gets shot by the bad guys early on would be like a Janet-Leigh-in-PSYCHO type move (spoilers for LONE WOLF MCQUADE and PSYCHO).

McQuade’s “just how badass is he” resume comes in the form of meeting his daughter Sally (Dana Kimmell, FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III)’s boyfriend, who has heard so much about him that he lists the things he’s heard about him. Then the poor kid gets killed for witnessing gunrunners shooting cops, and Sally gets hospitalized. Then later she also gets kidnapped. Not exactly economical storytelling in my opinion, but that’s how McQuade gets into a conflict with our villain.

That villain is the cocky cigarette smoking murdering arms dealer and karate champion Rawley Wilkes, played by David Carradine, so it’s the battle of the iconic white martial arts stars. You know how I like when action movies have the villain demonstrate their fighting prowess early on to set up a climactic duel with the hero? In this one he literally demonstrates his karate by setting up a ring at the rodeo and mercilessly beating the shit out of some guys in front of an audience. And don’t worry, it delivers on the promise by having them fight at the end. Of course, Norris had a classic on screen fight with the real Bruce Lee, and the fight with the white replacement for Bruce Lee doesn’t hold a candle to it. You can tell Carradine is not in Norris’s league when it comes to fighting. But I respect the gesture.

There’s another mastermind, a little person in a wheelchair who collects video games and funds the evil organization. In my opinion it might be condescending that they play “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies” in the background in one of his scenes. Also it’s pretty cheap of McQuade to pretend to accept a deal from the guy but not really come out and specifically say it, so that later he can go back on the agreement by saying “You made the deal, Shorty. Not me.” But I guess he’s just a white karate man, not a samurai, so he’s not expected to keep his word.

Wait a minute, no, a man keeping his word is valued even in the savage futuristic society of Barter Town. Bust a deal and face the wheel. Not cool, McQuade. You have dishonored your late wolf L.W.

That’s not McQuade’s only police work involving questionable ethics. At one point he chases down an informant, causing a car crash and explosion. He actually yells “No!” and rescues the guy, so you think he’s sympathetic toward him… but then he chains him to a tree and has L.Q. Jones shoot around him with an uzi until he talks. They literally wink at each other. Ha ha, it’s okay because I was looking the other way. Didn’t know Texas Rangers practiced extraordinary rendition.

One thing that’s interesting: the hero and villain share the same girlfriend, Lola (Barbara Carrera from ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU ’77). I kept expecting her to turn on him, but no, she’s just liberated I guess.

McQuade’s enjoyment of beer is a major theme throughout the movie. He’s always cracking one open or throwing one to a buddy. That probly explains why his angry captain (the late R.G. Armstrong) is named Captain Tee Tyler. Sounds like teetotaler, opposite of beer drinker, making him the opposite of McQuade.

There are many enjoyable aspects to the movie, but for sure my favorite is what happens with his truck. He’s real proud of the thing and always showboating. He laughs at the word “supercharged” and drives it fast enough that it sounds like a speeder bike from Star Wars. When some other cops get their vehicle trapped in some rocks he shows off by driving up behind them and pushing them out.

So when Wilkes gets the drop on McQuade he decides to bury him alive in his truck, a fitting fuck you. They cover it in dirt with a bulldozer. McQuade sits there and decides to drink a beer. Not in a cool and calm way, though – he spills it all over himself. Then he puts the pedal to the metal and drives the fucking thing out of the dirt. You see the police lights glowing beneath the earth like a demon tearing its way out of Hell.

At first I assumed this was showing how awesome the truck is, that it can be completely buried and then drive its way out. But McQuade’s exhaustion seems to indicate that he somehow did it. He was pushing down on the pedal so hard it could do it, maybe. I don’t know, but he collapses and demands another beer.

In the tradition of DJANGO, BEST OF THE BEST, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES and many other badass tales he takes a beating and has to fight back even while injured. Practicing with his dummies he finds out the worst thing a Chuck Norris character could ever find out: he can’t shoot guns because the recoil hurts his injured wrist and throws off his aim. It makes him so mad that he karate kicks out a support beam on his shed.

One thing that’s kind of lame, but in a funny way, is that after establishing how superhumanly awesome McQuade is throughout the movie his defeat of Wilkes is something plenty of other dudes could’ve done. Yeah, they fight and everything but he finally kills him by throwing a grenade at him when he’s stupid enough to stand in a shed with other explosives in it. I mean, the timing was good and everything but you’ll notice that McQuade’s Mexican-American sidekick Kayo is the one who still has a grenade. He yells “Hey, McQuade!” and throws it to him, so he can throw it at Wilkes. It would’ve been easier for Kayo to throw it himself (and less risky since he doesn’t have a wrist injury), but he gives McQuade the glory, like a dad playing two-on-two basketball and giving up an opening for a layup so his son can get the winning basket.

(To be fair, McQuade does exhibit ghost-like powers in running straight at Wilkes, who is firing hundreds of bullets in his direction and not ever hitting him. So I credit him for that.)

I like Norris better in this than some of the other movies I’ve seen him in. He’s doing the stoic, squinting Eastwood type of hero, which he’s better at than trying to be likable. He’s pretty cool in this.

I joked about Chuck’s politics earlier, but I gotta say something serious about it real quick. I know that alot of if not most of the stars of these action movies I love so much have very different politics from me. For example my hero Clint recently endorsed Mitt Romney, a sleazy nitwit who could easily be cast as a despised bureaucrat in a Dirty Harry movie. Bruce, Kurt Russell and most pro wrestlers are known to lean right. Sly said some stupid bullshit on Twitter about President Obama being “the Manchurian Candidate.” Arnold is a Republican (although a pretty moderate one who did a couple things as Governor that I thought were good.) Seagal has some left-ish messages in his movies, but lately has been hanging out with that nut Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona, now notorious for not bothering to investigate over 400 sex crimes cases even though he had time to “investigate” whether or not Obama was born outside of the country and given fake birth certificates and birth announcements in case this baby grew up to be elected president. I can disagree with these people, think they’re being silly or stupid sometimes, but still respect them and love their movies. But I have to admit to an extra bit of anger toward that side of Chuck Norris.

I don’t imagine Norris being a dick on a personal level. He seems like he’d be a really nice guy to the people he works with and who know him. But unlike those other guys he actually writes political editorials on various websights, and unfortunately they reveal his true character.

Obviously I knew this was a guy I had nothing in common with when l first read the description of his book Black Belt Patriotism: How to Reawaken America, and I thought he was an idiot when I saw him on some cable news show during the height of the Iraq war debacle, saying he couldn’t take a stance on it because he didn’t want to be involved in politics, but he had chosen to come on to promote the cause of a guy who had to take down a giant flagpole because it violated zoning laws. I can sometimes laugh off shit like that, but not shit like this annoyingly-worded screed he wrote for Ammoland.com trying to prove that Obama is somehow behind some people in the Boy Scouts wanting to end their organization’s historic discrimination against gays and lesbians. As if that would be a bad thing.

I think this is the worst part:

“For years, I’ve signed and sent out hundreds of Eagle Scout recognition letters. And I personally have known a host of Boy Scouts, Eagle Scouts and BSA leaders. These individuals epitomize the best of America. Indeed, the BSA is as integral a part of American life and culture as hot dogs, baseball and Grandma’s apple pie.”

The implication being that gays and lesbians could never epitomize the best of America, so if you spot one you gotta kick them out. In fact, it sounds like he respects food items such as hot dogs and pies more than gay and lesbian human beings. I take this shit personally because, like most people, I have gay family, friends, neighbors, readers, and I know that they’re great people who should have the same rights as the grandma who made the pie or the pricks like Norris who bully them for being different. I take this as an attack on my family and community.

Chuck Norris hates gays so much he can’t see that he’s blatantly violating the love for personal freedom he talks about in his editorials, his books, his movies, his fuckin posters. And the anti-bullying PSAs on his cartoon. So barring the ol’ redemptive-late-in-life change-of-heart, fuck this guy. This guy is an asshole.

But I’m still trying to be fair about his movies. And I did enjoy this one. INVASION U.S.A. is funnier but LONE WOLF MCQUADE is a good balance of ridiculousness and some decent execution, and that’s one of the best types of ’80s action movie. The director is Steve Carver (DRUM, JOCKS), screenplay by B.J. Nelson (SCANNERS II-III), story by Nelson and H. Kaye Dyal (PROJECT ELIMINATOR). I recommend this one to my fellow Chuck-curious non-believers.


This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 14th, 2012 at 1:10 pm and is filed under Action, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

57 Responses to “Lone Wolf McQuade”

  1. Carradine Vs. Norris in the epic battle of cinemas slowest fighters is one of the greatest moments in unintentional hilarity. Only those 2 could still end up getting hit while seeing the punch coming a mile away.

  2. Seanbaby even did an article on that scene if I remember. It truly does stand the test of time in the realm of WTF.

  3. CODE OF SILENCE is also his best and always will be. INVASION U.S.A. does come damn close though. It’s like a Seagal without Seagal. The blueprint for a lot of Andrew Davis tropes used in his future classics.

  4. meant to type *But CODE OF SILENCE is king It’s like

    whoops

  5. This is my favourite Norris, because of its attempt (music-wise at least) to emulate spaghetti-westerns, but also it features a Carradine vs Norris setup which I approve of.CODE OF SILENCE however is not a very good Norris film because it is actually good.

  6. I meant to say: CODE OF SILENCE is not a very good Norris film simply because the film is actually good. I hope I made myself more clear here.

  7. Ya, this is definitely my favorite Norris film. I love the Spaghetti-western vibe, and Carradine is an awesome villain.

    Vern, you really need to track down and watch Silent Rage, that’s the only Chuck Norris film you’ve missed out on so far that really needs to be seen. Halloween meets a Michael Crichton sci-fi movie meets a Chuck Norris flick, it’s totally bizarre and super fun.

  8. When Clint Eastwood announced his support of Romney it really gave me a sinking feeling. Mostly because it made Clint seem like a senile old man, and I don’t want to think of him that way.

    On a related note, Norris’s book’s inside flap apparently says “Chuck Norris remembers a better America–an America of faith, freedom, and respect for tradition, history, and human life.” I think that’s funny, because it makes him sound like he’s 95 years old.

  9. I’m gonna be honest, guys, I always thought this one was kinda boring. I keep meaning to give it another shot, but let’s be frank: It’s no MISSING IN ACTION 2.

    Another example of liberal Hollywood cramming its pro-tolerance rhetoric down Norris’ throat is in FORCED VENGEANCE, which is a pretty good one from his Blond Period when he was just starting to mix Western imagery with Eastern mysticism. Just as he’s about to torture information out of a gay guy, Chuck says, “The bravest man I ever met was a homosexual.” The line comes out of nowhere, but it must have been put in there to show that this particular bit of violence was all business and not a hate crime. I wonder if Chuck remembers that line now.

  10. What?! MISSING IN ACTION 2 is way more boring than the first one! Hardly any explosions and action until the last half an hour and even thatt is weak. I can not believE I am saying this because Joseph Zito is usually such a weak action-director and in MI1 he shows why; having constructed suspense around Norris is never a good idea. Shame on you,Zito. I love RED SCORPION,however. Zito does horrror best.

  11. When I heard that Clint had endorsed Mitt, all I could think of was, “You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

  12. Stallone and Schwarzenegger are pretty much libertarians. So is Bruce Willis and Kurt Russell. Seagal is a liberal, Dolph Lundgren is liberal. Van Damme is Apolitical and Michael Dudikoff I’m guessing is independent because he is pro NRA but also sort of big on helping the poor. Norris is by far the most extreme in politics hence why you people tend to dislike him vs disagreeing with the others.

  13. Guys come-one, do we have to get all political when it comes to our action icons? I don’t agree with their politics either, but flat out stating that anyone supporting Romney is senile or an idiot is incredibly condescending, and exactly the kind of political divisiveness that has poisoned public discourse in this country. Chuck’s statements are more insulting, but again, I separate the man from his politics, just like I do with Mel Gibson and his personal life. Lets try to be keep things open and thoughtful here.

  14. My main beef with Chuck is that he apparently kept cursing out of EXPENDABLES 2. I think gay rights will manage to survive the rantings of one elderly nutjob, but who will speak up for the F-bombs?

  15. Fuck yeah!

  16. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this one, but I seem to remember that Carradine’s character drives a car with the license plate “carate.” Like the car does karate or something, I guess.

  17. The Original... Paul

    August 14th, 2012 at 4:10 pm

    I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Norris movie other than “Way of the Dragon” and “Sidekicks”. Shameful, I know. What are the really good ones to check out?

    I had no idea about his politics either. That’s actually pretty depressing. The “Faith, freedom…” line that psychic quoted makes me see red. This guy’s values are so, so far and away from mine, and yet he seems to regard them as unquestionable.

  18. Bullet3, I more meant that supporting Romney seems so out of step with the values that Clint’s body of work stands for, that my only recourse was to assume he’s losing it.

  19. …or that he’d been compensated somehow for his endorsement, but only a crazy conspiracy theorist would suggest that such a thing might ever have happened.

  20. Carradine dying is such a shame. He would be good in the Expendables iii, for example. He was great in Kill Bill. He could have gotten the same Tarantino lift as Travolta. I loved Circle of Iron. Probably would have been better with Lee though.

    He’s in some embarrassment purgatory, with Michael Hutchins of INXS, for death by autoerotic asphyxiation. In Bangkok even! Consider the choices you had! Uggh, Carradine, what the fuck was that?

  21. Actually Broddie, Chuck was known for his speed back in the day. If he’s slow here, it’s to accommodate Carradine.

    Also – not supporting his position, but Vern, I don’t think he’s actually a prick: he’s just taking his scriptural interpretations far too literally.

  22. Original, check out Code of Silence, the Hitman, Invasion USA and the immortal Hero and the Terror.

    Majestyk – he may have kept out the F-Bombs, but he was completely ineffective against exploding heads.

  23. I know everybody rolls their eyes at them nowadays, but those Chuck Norris jokes were fucking hilarious when they were new

  24. It’s time we get rid of the stigma accompanying death by autoerotic asphyxiation. I recently read about a man from China who died because he stayed up for a week drinking, smoking and watching the Euro Cup. At first I felt sorry for the guy, but after thinking about it, I figured that he died doing what he loved. I think the same can be said about David Carradine.

    Also, those Chuck Norris jokes were funny for a while. They just kind of overstayed their welcome (I think that happened when they started publishing books full of them).

  25. hey man, I love whacking off too, but I wouldn’t want to DIE doing it

  26. Clint is pretty liberal (socially at least) for someone supporting publically Romney, he did a GQ interview last year promoting J. EDGAR and said basically it isn’t the govt’s business to interfere with people’s lives and said he doesn’t give a fuck who marries who and Washington shouldn’t either.

    “I was an Eisenhower Republican when I started out at 21, because he promised to get us out of the Korean War”… “And over the years, I realized there was a Republican philosophy that I liked. And then they lost it. And libertarians had more of it. Because what I really believe is, let’s spend a little more time leaving everybody alone.”

    Honestly, I’m not as disappointed in Clint’s support. He’s most certainly a registered California voter, and they usually go blue right out of the gate come election time.

  27. I named my cat Chuck Norris because Chuck Norris is a pussy.

  28. I’m not convinced Carradine was alone when he died. There were rumors of a coverup.

    Either way, he died sleazy. I like to think he would have wanted it that way.

  29. Didn’t know that Robert Beltran ever made a movie with Chuck Norris. Now Beltran is a really arrogant dick. I don’t know about his politics, though.

  30. I actually re-watched all the Chuck Norris movies I saw in the 80’s recently and came to the conclusion that the ONLY ones worth watching are his Stetson trilogy; SILENT RAGE, FORCED VENGEANCE and LONE WOLF MCQUADE. In these three movies he’s trying to branch out and become “the new Eastwood”. I guess that’s why he’s wearing a cowboy hat in all of them. He didn’t become the next anything because of these movies, but all three are very watchable. A bit more inventive than his usual output and quite a bit more liberal.

    The reason LONE WOLF MCQUADE is as good as it is, is that it was originally a Kris Kristofferson movie and when he pulled out Chuck got the part and convinced his friend John Milius to polish the script. Milius later said that this was the main inspiration for EXTRREME PREJUDICE that came out four years later.

    I guess the reason we talk a lot about these movie icons’ political views is that we simply hate it when people we like say stupid things. And it is a fact that Republicans/conservatives say a lot of stupid shit. Why the hell can’t they just shut up and stick to making movies?!

  31. Of his earlier work I like THE OCTAGON with Norris inner monologues a lot. It also has Richard Norton,Lee van Cleef and ninjas. Good shit. A FORCE OF ONE and GOOD GUYS WEAR BLACK are mediocre ones. Although the latter one has that great scene in which Norris jumpkick a guy through a windshield.

  32. AN EYE FOR AN EYE is also kinda okay. But if you guys want to see something REALLY cool check out THE WRECKING CREW, where Chuck gets his ass kicked good and proper by…wait for it…Dean Martin!

  33. Darth – Chuck was fast in the ring but in his movies he’s always had some of the slowest choreographed fight scenes of all time.

  34. I find, the more I read about our action icons political leanings, that I really have to seperate art from the artist, otherwise I’d end up throwing all my DVDs of theirs in the trash.

    If Norris had actually done that awesome thru-the-windscreen kick in GGWB I’d have forgiven him anything, but it was his brother, Aaron.

    Interesting fact about Aaron Norris*: He looks like Treat Williams playing Chuck Norris.

    *”Interesting” might be pushing it.

  35. Hey, I’m not saying that death by autoerotic asphyxiation is the ideal way to go. I think dying in bed surrounding with loved ones, or whatever, is still the preferred means of slipping away. But isn’t Carradine’s death a little more, I don’t want to say dignifying, but badass (maybe) than slipping in the shower or getting hit by a car. Is it that much worse than dying during some other recreational activity, like parasailing?

  36. Honestly, I have no clue how this guy has an over 40 year movie career. You can count the number of decent movies on one hand. I count them on one finger personally,Code Of Silence and I consider that a Steven Seagal movie before he was discovered(being filmed in the Chi gives it some points also since it was rare when I was a kid).He’s got zero charisma, terrible screen presence, and the worst fight choreography of any major action star who can really whip your ass in the real world. This guy literary forged a 40 year screen career off getting his ass whipped by Bruce Lee in the only really memorable thing he’s ever done. To make matters worse his politics are some tea party bullshit and he’s the type of out of touch ass wipe I could never get along with in person. Fuck Chuck Norris and his bullshit career which only exists because american studios refused to make a star out of a young Jackie Chan or the many other asians who would have whipped his ass in the movies or real life.

  37. In a perfect world it would be Bob Wall instead of this douche bag who got the 40 year career. In an even more perfect world Bruce would still be alive and doing dramas right now and Chuck’s face would only show up in retrospectives of Bruce’s career

  38. I guess in Norris’ case it wasn’t so much what he knew as who he knew. Let’s face it, the fight with Bruce at The Collosseum ain’t that much. But through Lee he had become friends with people like Steve McQueen and David Carradine, and when those guys talked him up to be the next martial arts star Hollywood obviously listened. On the other hand, he didn’t excactly have much competition back in those days.

  39. MISSING IN ACTION II is the first real action movie I ever saw, and it got me hooked on the genre. Yeah, Chuck Norris sucks, and MI:II is no masterpiece, but it hits its beats. Made me a lifelong fan of badass cinema, anyway.

    “This is for Franklin [BOOM] and this is for me [BOOOOMM].”

  40. There’s a lot of hate coming from Norris these days.

    Most of it stems from his fundamentalist beliefs; his hatred of gays, lesbians and atheists is purely faith based, and I now feel deflated whenever I see anything to do with him. Back in the 80s I thought he was a pretty good role model for kids (unless, of course, the kids wanted to act), and I enjoyed watching him kick ass even in the lamest of his movies.

    It’s a crying shame that he turned out to be a nutter and a terrible role model.

    Bruce Lee was the better fighter, actor and philosopher… Chuck could have learned a thing or two… or three.

  41. Clint’s been known to lean right for sometime. He had some negative things to say about Obama awhile back. I don’t think it’s him being senile. He’s just gotten small government instincts. How Romney advances that agenda I don’t know.

  42. My take on this is that even more than anyone else (Arnold probably comes closest), Chuck’s role in this movie is Norris playing the role of the fictional Chuck Norris of internet legend (beard, fist, etc.). I was profoundly disturbed that they were thinking of changing it to PG-13 for Chuck Norris because of his concern about “vulgar dialogue.” As if a film like this be wholesome Christian family entertainment if we dropped the “vulgar dialogue” but left in the whole mercenaries fighting covert wars, exploding heads, etc. It just underscores how much this guy doesn’t get it. He has basically bought into this unholy alliance among Christianity, knee-jerk militarism, and GOP social conservative culture wars.

    I think John Cusack was onto something:

    Who are your heroes in real life?
    Let’s go with Jesus. Not the gay-hating, war-making political tool of the right, but the outcast, subversive, supreme adept who preferred the freaks and lepers and despised and doomed to the rich and powerful. The man Garry Wills describes “with the future in his eyes … paradoxically calming and provoking,” and whom Flannery O’Connor saw as “the ragged figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of [one’s] mind.”

  43. Lone_Wolf_McWeeny

    August 18th, 2012 at 6:32 am

    Fuck Chuck and his Political views but as a action star, the guy is one of my heroes growing up as a kid… As a kid he was a super-hero that’s all that I saw, just him and his karate kicks fucking up bad guys, no political view in sight… He can hate any kind of people all he wants, just don’t follow it with action and start karate kicking gays left and right, that I will have a problem with…. I don’t read his editorials or his book, I just watch his movies and I’ll just keep it at that…

  44. I stopped rooting for lone wolf when Babara Carrera took the time to clean his house & he responded by carrying his beer cans back in like a child. I’m all for being a rebel, man’s man & individual & all that self conscious crap but when a woman [Beautiful too, which is a bonus] takes the time to tolerate your silliness, tidy up & still want to offer herself to you, then that’s that lady has potential to be a keeper. Even as an 11 year old I realised that.

  45. In my mind you just don´t throw a mans beer away. Also I hate when someone else starts cleaning up the mess I´ve made for myself.Can´t find shit after that.

  46. That’s a big problem for you, Shoot?

  47. What can I say? I´m a slob.

  48. I don´t know what you mean by that. I just don´t like seeing good beer go to waste nor do I like people cleaning my shit up.

  49. I don’t know, I just pictured you being constantly tortured by foxy ladies who wanted to clean up your half empty beer cans. I know a little about what Swedes are like, as you know (for those not in the knowing, half of Sweden are working here in Oslo).

  50. Lone_Wolf_McWeeny

    August 19th, 2012 at 9:29 am

    As a kid I went ape shit when towards the end, Lone Wolf dodge the spray of Bullets from Carradine and he threw the grenade at them and “EXPLOSION”. I was pumped the fuck up!!!! Overall, this is a good movie with solid drama and acting.. I even dug the score, it add emotional depth to it…

  51. It’s been a long time since I saw this movie but I vaguely remember it was OK. Not great. Of course my opinion is going to be affected by the fact that I don’t enjoy westerns, even partial ones.

    Eastwood has been a known right-winger since he entered politics as mayor of Carmel in the 1980s. Over the years he switched back and forth between Republican and Democrat before landing on libertarian, which seems to be the refuge of people who’ve come to find the Republicans embarrassing, but still don’t want to care about helping people.

    Knew about Willis, Stallone, and Seagal, but was disappointed to hear about Russell. That’s going to reduce my enjoyment of his work from now on. Schwarzenegger gets a grandfather-clause pass because I’ve liked his movies since I was 11 and I knew he was a Republican before I cared about politics. Also because he’s a moderate who did some good things like you said, and more recently spoke out against hate, the alt-right, and Trump.

    What is it with action movie stars (and related types such as the wrestlers you mentioned, or action TV stars)? Why do they tend to be right-wing? Is it tied in with the testosterone/empathy thing that Simon Baron-Cohen talks about? Recently I was disappointed to discover two 1970s strongmen whose worked I’ve enjoyed, Peter Lupus and Lou Ferrigno, are also right-wing.

    If I had to recommend a Chuck Norris movie, it would be CODE OF SILENCE or THE HITMAN. EYE FOR AN EYE is OK too. THE OCTAGON is one I need to re-watch. It seemed a little boring at the time but I might appreciate it more now. I recently re-watched SILENT RAGE and it was a real struggle to get through it, despite it having a cool premise, the sci-fi origin for the unkillable horror movie slasher.

    There’s also HELLBOUND, that movie where he goes to Israel and fights Satan, but I forget if I liked it or not. Depends on how much it is set in a boring desert, probably.

  52. Maybe somebody will come in with more info that I will regret knowing about, but I should say that I have heard Russell described as conservative, but I’ve never heard any specifics of what that means. I definitely haven’t heard of him being a Trumpy or anything like that. Hopefully he’s not too bad?

  53. According to his Wikipedia entry, Kurt Russell is a libertarian. By modern standards that’s not the worst possible outcome. And it just says he’s a libertarian, not necessarily an Objectivist. It’s possible he’s a left-libertarian who wants gay married couples to be able to defend their marijuana with guns (to quote that bumper sticker). He moved here to Vancouver, one of the more liberal places in Canada, so that his son could play hockey. So maybe there’s hope for him. :-)

  54. When it comes to movie stars being on the right, I believe it’s basically a great misunderstanding of the old western trope of the hero fighting the town’s strong man. They take it to be the loner fighting the government for the right to be free, without taxes or gun control to bog him down. But if you compare it to leftist films like HEAVENS GATE or MAD MAX: FURY ROAD you’d hope that they would see that it’s really the old Che Guevara situation. A fighter comes in, helps the town people to rebell and get some kind of democracy going, and then leave again. Pure leninism. It happens in every western there is, and a lot of them were written by people who got blacklisted in the 50s. But political morons like John Wayne didn’t get it, and were pretty vocal about it.

    As for Chuck Norris movies. I’ve always liked LONE WOLF MCQUADE, CODE OF SILENCE and FORCED VENGEANCE. The two first could clearly have been made with other actors in the lead, which is always a good sign. The script for MCQUADE was even doctored by John Milius as a dry run for EXTREME PREJUDICE. And the last on is without question his best martial arts movie, with a sleazy 80s style and lots of Chinese stuntmen to back him up.

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