Story Synopsis: Former US Navy SEAL Brad Cartowski is travelling home from a holiday with his wife & son when, while waiting in Athens Airport, the son discovers that the plastic toy guns that a group of people are carrying are actually real ones disguised in order to bypass metal detectors. The people carrying the weapons are terrorists planning to hijack a plane in order to demand the release of Jose Maria Carlos, a feared terrorist who was captured by the CIA in Guatemala a while before. They succeed in hijacking the plane despite Brad's best efforts to stop them, taking his wife Marcy as an insurance policy. After Carlos is released, they travel to North Africa where Carlos & his henchmen plan to celebrate, using Marcy as a love slave. Brad turns to his former colleagues at the Navy in order to launch a covert mission to rescue Marcy & defeat the terrorists. But the terrorists, who have something of a lucky streak as well as being unusually smart for a bunch of maniacal killers, certainly don't make it that easy for him.
Film Analysis: During the 1980s, Israeli film producers Menahem Golan & Yoram Globus formed Cannon Films, a studio that would become a powerhouse of cheap B-grade action & fantasy during the whole of the 1980s. Despite the majority of their films making a lot of money, they always ran at a loss. After a disastrous alliance with director Tobe Hooper, Cannon went bankrupt, although their last theatrical release – the Albert Pyun-directed Van Damme vehicle CYBORG came out shortly afterwards.
After they went belly up, Golan & Globus kept on making films, with their creation of 21st Century Film Corporation (which would make the likes of the final Death Wish film DEATH WISH V: THE FACE OF DEATH & the remake of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD) lasting for a short while. Deadly Heroes, a film helmed by Golan himself, was one of these releases.
Deadly Heroes is nothing more than a typical 80s film made in the 1990s. The action scenes are serviceable & have a mild intensity that works in the film's favour – the film's running time goes by in a flash. The beginning of the film is quite intriguing, with the terrorists being given modified weapons by a mad scientist before moving on to the airport massacre which starts off after a young boy learns of the weapons' true purpose & alerts the security guards.
The film is fast paced & has some ingenious plot devices – namely the 'toy' guns – but is not smart enough to rise above the flood of the 1990s' DTV action film genre (although it does manage to completely avoid using the flood's stock MacGuffin of illicit drugs, something which was extremely pervasive throughout that genre at the time). Golan keeps things going with admirable skill & has an eye for action, although the film is not exactly a corpse-fest. If you find this film in the discount bin of your favourite DVD retailer, purchase it. It'll be a good buy for the low price (if you live in Australia like I do, it can be bought from the local $2 shop for at least $2).
On the acting front, Michael Pare brings a rough charm to the proceedings, as well as a dogged determination. Jan Michael Vincent appears to be giving the film a degree of contempt while Billy Drago has a lot of fun playing the terrorist head honcho with his unique brand of unpredictability.
