Starring:
Chuck Norris
Lee Van Cleef
Plot summary: Chuck Norris beats the hell out of a lot of people in the ultimate action suspense movie.
Most suspense movies fall apart because you are able to predict where the story is going. Being kept on edge is the appeal, hence the name. Director Eric Karson realizes that understanding is the natural enemy of suspense. If the audience has any idea what is going on in the movie, the film is no longer suspenseful. The Octagon is a 103 minute masterpiece of keeping the audience from figuring out anything about the plot, characters, motivations or dialogue.
Chuck Norris stars as a retired martial arts champion named Scott James, a departure from his usual role as a regular guy who by chance is also a martial arts expert. Throughout the film Chuck provides exposition using the time honored narrative technique of echoed whispers. Not only does it make the most basic of plot devices spooky and otherworldly, it makes half of his words unintelligible, keeping the audience gripped in suspense, trying to figure out who a new character is and why Chuck just kicked him in the head.
The movie opens with a well orchestrated crime. Big deal, right? So does any other suspense, action, action/suspense or romantic comedy. The twist is that it's a terrorist assassination. Of the Canadian ambassador to France. That has never happened before in film history. I had to do some fact checking to determine if there actually is a Canadian ambassador to France. As of the time of publication, he is Raymond Chrétien.Right after that, Chuck meets a hot ballet dancer when he notices her using martial arts techniques in her show. It turns out that she learned them from her ninja assassin brother. Incidentally, I am a firm believer that a ninja assassin/ballet dancer brother/sister crime fighting team would make the greatest movie of all time, and I always have been. At any rate, Chuck gets drawn in because of possible ties from her brother to Seikura, Chuck's brother and fellow student of the deadly arts. Plus she's really hot. Anyways, she dies before you can get a handle on her name, so you have to refer to her as the hot ballet dancer, which is actually how they list her in the credits.
Then we meet Lee Van Cleef, playing McCarn, an anti-terrorist mercenary that has a bumper sticker that says "Have You Hugged Your Rifle Today?" He is possibly the cheeriest assassin I've ever seen in a movie, and never fails to smile when vaguely threatening someone, warning someone of impending doom, or shooting someone in the head. Sort of a guardian angel in the film, he appears randomly to advise Chuck on dealing with Seikura's army, save his friends, or shoot a half dozen ninja assassins.
Chuck then meets Justine, a young woman wearing a fur coat on a sunny day who is having car problems. Specifically her car is on the dirt shoulder. Chuck helps her back onto the road and then she drives off with his keys as part of an elaborate pick up scheme. He goes to her house to get them back later, where she is still wearing a fur coat in order to signify her role as the capitalist oppressor. The daughter of an assassinated European publisher, she has hired out Lee Van Cleef as protection. She hopes Chuck will kill Seikura and stop his deadly band of ninja assassins. She tries to seduce him with offers of sex, money, and incomprehensible dialogue like "I have the most confident looking cheekbones," said in an ironic and self-effacing manner, I think.
His worst fears confirmed, that his childhood buddy has indeed opened a ninja assassin school, Chuck must do what all action heroes do in this situation. Join the organization in the hopes of killing everyone from the inside. He answers their classified ad, where we find that the front end of the ninja assassin school is run by the tux-wearing Mr. Beady and his assistant, a cowboy. They share the office space with a square dancing class, which would only be a marginally less weird front end. Mr. Cowboy doesn't like Chuck from the start, repeatedly saying about Chuck, "He looks like the constipated type." I believe this is an early 80's vague threat. That or a come on.
Now technically what Chuck joins is Doggo's mercenary terrorist outfit, sort of a temp agency of death to whom Seikura has outsourced his personnel decisions. But they seem to be all part of the rich tapestry in any case. Chuck is apparently a fairly well known, seeing as how everyone in the Doggo's clan already knows him. Three or four of Doggo's men recognize him as a martial arts master, and so challenge him in hand to hand combat. Chuck beats them down easily, thus elevating his position in the herd and increasing his mating chances.
And thus he meets Laura, a sweet brunette with a widow's peak as vicious as her jump kick to the crotch. We find she was looking for meaning in a meaningless world, so made the the all-too-common transition from hog farmer to highly trained killer. She holds out for almost five minutes before throwing herself repeatedly at a disinterested Chuck.
Chuck shows us the delicate line between world-wise cynicism and just not giving a shit about any living thing. This strength and indifference draws in the psychologically disadvantaged women of the film, driving them to throw themselves into his arms and randomly exclaim meaningless interjections.
Chuck interrupts the plot for a flashback and in echoed whispers tells us how Seikura fell out of favor with Chuck and the rest of the martial arts community at such a young age. Seikura challenged Chuck to a fight after losing a classic martial arts obstacle course that apparently inspired the final round of American Gladiators. This apparently offended the master who drove him out of house and home and on the long lonely path of ninja assassin professorship.
And speaking of hair, The Octagon clearly illustrates the power of big hair. Chuck Norris's hair (left) is almost 35% bigger than his better known works Delta Force and Delta Force 2. Justine decides to seduce Chuck's friend AJ (middle) into trying to kill Seikura when she finds out he is (a) stupider and (b) of bigger hair than even Chuck. And then there's Seikura himself (right), who proves that the Asian fro was never a good idea.
Meanwhile, Laura finally gets Chuck into the sack, which of course is the action movie signal for the beginning of the apocalyptic confrontation between evil martial arts master and morally ambiguous martial arts master. AJ decides to attack the ninja headquarters on his own, so blinded by booty he forgets the usual fate of the hero's best friend. He lasts almost four seconds before being captured by ninjas disguised as shrubbery. Laura infiltrates the camp armed with a large stick and an automatic rifle. Chuck rushes in and is able to kill, maim, and embarrass about 40 or 50 ninja trainees before falling prey to the advanced tactic of rushing a man in large groups.
Seikura watches on as Chuck is forced to travel an obstacle course of death while killing the ninjas hiding behind every corner. His assistant, who could win a casting call for Mr. Miyagi's evil twin, holds AJ at knifepoint. Then Chuck must leap from floating platform of death to floating platform of death in a loving tribute to Frogger. At long last Chuck gets to the last level of the death game, forced to match steel with a ninja swordsman wearing a Mexican wrestler style mask who threateningly hisses at him. Chuck kills him a couple times, but the hissing swordsman is unfazed. After Chuck kills him a third time and sets him on fire, it sticks.
However, Chuck is still held captive. There are plenty of ninjas around, even though Chuck has singlehandedly ended at least a hundred by now. You have to hand it to Doggo's temp agency of death. Seikura finally does the gene pool the favor of killing AJ, and Chuck is pretty much toast on a stick. But then Doggo's mercenary group attacks the ninja camp, underscoring the infamous schism between ninja assassins and mercenary terrorists. We find that, in this movie at least, automatic weapons are surprisingly useful against the ninja. Doggo is of course attacking out of resentment for his subordinate role to Seikura. Or it might have been a power play to take over the organization. Or he might just have been psychotic. Chuck probably whispered why, but I lost it in the echoes.
The important thing is that this allows Seikura to flee into the woods and Chuck to follow. They play hide and seek just like the old days, with deadly intent. Chuck comes to grips with the demons of his past, calling out, "You don't torment me anymore, Seikura. This time I'm gonna kill you." In keeping with the themes of the movie, Seikura rushes Chuck from behind and dies on Chuck's sword. But then you realize that Chuck is the one who suffered the deadly blow. For a short while you suspect that maybe both of them die. Then Seikura falls and Chuck starts whispering as the movie fades to black.
Keeping you guessing until the final moments, and then for several minutes afterwards, I would have to say that The Octagon is the greatest movie I have ever seen.
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