Delta Force Commando 2 Reviews

This needlessly murky European production is a pseudo-cerebral take on similar, more facile US fare. The result, DELTA FORCE COMMANDO 2, is credible as neither actioner nor espionage, though it could likely have been both. A jet fighter is airborne. At a secret telecommunications and radar facility, a serviceman monitors computer data and air traffic systems. They disclose the approach of the lone fighter, its mission unknown. The pilot, General John McCailland (Van Johnson), heads a top-secret intelligence branch known as the Fourth Division. After landing, he accuses Captain Sam Beck (Fred Williamson) of negligent command of the facility, from which clandestine communications have been transmitted. Meanwhile, a man in an Eastern European hotel is murdered by a female terrorist. The scene shifts to a truck convoy on the USSR-Afghanistan border, where a group of guards brutally murder the drivers and hijack the trucks to an unnamed destination. By evident pre-arrangement, one guard is given a lift, by the same female terrorist seen earlier. But when the man breaks out in perverse, incessant laughter, she kills him too and dumps the body out. The scene shifts again to a Middle Eastern cafe, where a nameless man (Richard Hatch) negotiates a fee to provide some unknown material or service to a local agent. He leaves but is assaulted by two men who pummel him before he savagely retaliates. An old friend and former boss, Alex, announces his presence nearby. Brett Haskell, as Alex now identifies the man, has deserted Delta Force over grave doubts about "black ops" and treachery in the name of peace. They discuss who eliminated the hotel man, the CIA's top Middle East agent. Haskell is given a photo of a woman--the female terrorist--he is apparently required to liquidate. Haskell, it seems, was once involved with her. Meanwhile, two denizens of the secret telecommunications facility discuss the theft of six nukes. Captain Beck orders new security measures, including surveillance of the suspicious McCailland. Then, at an unidentified air base, longtime acquaintances McCailland and Alex cryptically discuss the recruitment of Haskell to perform a foul, but unspecified, deed. At an airport, Haskell tails the female assassin, now posing as a lovely stewardess, but she descends "Staff Only" stairs. An airport baggage handler activates a briefcase bomb which is placed aboard a plane. He enters a deserted building and is shot by the woman. Haskell steps from the shadows and addresses her; sent to kill her, he will instead aid his former lover. Back at the telecommunications facility, McCailland hounds an officer to divulge the identity of the individual who's been transmitting clandestine missives. Haskell and the woman, Juna (Giannina Facio), walk pointlessly through a subterranean sewer to meet a Delta Force commander who is Haskell's old pal. He feels Haskell is a traitor, but gives him a Jeep anyway. Out in the country Haskell and Juna are ineptly pursued by horseman and fired upon by mortars. Telecommunications officer Wolf Lasky finds reference to summary executions, bomb attacks and ghastly CIA deception in classified files. He tells Beck he has decoded a message sent to McCailland. It suggests subversive activity and is signed "Yusef." Presumably Yusef is Alex, but it is unclear. Haskell and Juna lose their Jeep to a minefield and come to a mountain village where an elderly host gives them a motorcycle. At the secret base, Alex and McCailland fear that Haskell intends to warn the CIA of their plan. This all culminates at an outpost in Kashmir linking Pakistan to Afghanistan. The purloined nukes--Western warheads, Russian launchers--are aimed to strike Russia as some form of "joke." Haskell and Juna steal into the compound. Beck accuses McCailland of lying and takes his nemesis up in a two-seat plane. McCailland tells him where the nukes are. Beck ejects him, and then is shot down by hostile aircraft. Delta Forces land at the garrison. It is unclear how they knew to go there. A not very well staged battle commences. Is this story sensible? No. Intriguing? Vaguely. Worthwhile? Note the adjectives applied to plot, places and people: unspecified, unknown and unclear. The human world is certainly complex, but video viewers need more hard facts than those offered here to help explain its turmoil. (Violence, profanity.)