[REVIEW] The Octagon
You know, I kind of feel for Chuck Norris. These days he’s the punchline to a seemingly endless series of jokes and has gone so far to the right on the left-right political spectrum that he’s starting to come around the other side again. He guest-hosts on Fox News, for God’s sake. This is a man who’s come from from his roots as a practitioner of the martial arts and the maker of movies of middling-to-decent quality.
But whatever else you say about Chuck Norris, you have to give him credit on account: he was something of a trend-setter in the movie industry. How do I justify this? Well, when he made Missing in Action he was setting the stage for Rambo: First Blood, Part II and what stemmed from that. And when he made The Octagon he was opening the door to a whole bunch of movies about ninja. Yes, The Octagon was the first movie in the 1980s’ ninja boom.
The Octagon came out in 1980 and has some of the hallmarks of the ’70s martial-arts pictures Chuck Norris did: he’s essentially playing himself and he’s doing a stiff job of it. However, let me say before I continue with the criticism that I’ve seen The Octagon probably a dozen times since I first caught it in the theater as a kid, and I will probably watch it another dozen times before my hours on this Earth are up. I don’t really care that Chuck Norris’ role is that of yet another martial artist forced to take action by his circumstances and I don’t really care that Chuck seems a little adrift when delivering his dialogue. That just adds to the charm.
Norris’ character this time is named Scott James and he’s a former competitive martial arts champion who retired after injuring a man badly in the ring. When we meet him he’s accompanying his friend AJ to another tournament and generally trying to stay out of trouble. But wherever there is Chuck Norris there is trouble to be had, and it comes calling at the hands of terrorists and the men who fight them.
