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.

American hero Brad Cartowski (Pare) is vacationing in Athens with his wife Marcy (Mink) and young son Paul (Dean Bloch) when a band of terrorists storms the airport, hijacks a plane and takes everyone hostage. They demand the release of their imprisoned leader, Jose Maria Carlos (Drago), who's not just a terrorist, but also a creepy pervert. The USA actually gives in to their demands and Carlos is released. The terrorists then get away - but Marcy Cartowski is left behind with them. Carlos "falls in love" with her instantly and holds her captive in his mansion.Meanwhile, Brad teams up with hard-nosed fellow ex-Navy SEAL Cody Grant (Vincent) to hunt down Carlos and his terrorist gang and save his wife. Will these heroes be as deadly as promised? This movie is an exercise in silly, implausible action that's a lot of fun to watch, but it overstays its welcome at a punishing 104 minutes. The movie, in the second half, becomes repetitive, seemingly for no other reason than to needlessly extend the running time. Perhaps this was an attempt to seem more like a Hollywood movie, which are usually longer than DTV product. This was a mistake, because had Deadly Heroes been a tight 80 minutes, it could have joined the pantheon of greats (at least as far as silly action movies are concerned), joining such movies as American Kickboxer 2 (1993) and Night of the Kickfighters (1988). But a lot of the sense of fun dissipates towards the end.The terrorists with the plastic guns at the airport, the fact that Jan-Michael Vincent wears sunglasses almost the whole time, stock footage, funny, glaring continuity inconsistencies, and the stellar performance by one Dean Bloch as the young Cartowski (sadly his only screen performance to date) would seem to indicate a laugh-out-loud good time. Also the utterly ridiculous "stylized" face paint Pare and Vincent wear and the appearance of "mini-subs" (don't ask) contribute to the wackiness. Indeed, these are all good things, but the overlong nature of this odd duck of a movie (even the title hints that something is a little off-kilter) doesn't help matters.Naturally, there is the torture scene with Pare, who's at his wooden best, and the supposedly tough Vincent, who barks all his lines, seems a bit confused. Drago, whose expertise is playing baddies, really goes to town here as the evil terrorist/murderer/molester/kidnapper/hijacker/rapist. We always say a good action movie needs a strong bad guy, and, well...here you go.While on the plus side it's great to see Pare, Vincent and Drago all in a movie together, and there are some standout moments of unintentional comedy, some missteps along the way make this a mixed bag.For more action insanity, please visit: www.comeuppancereviews.com

You know those really bad action films of the late 80's and early 90's? Some of them had big star names like Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Willis or Norris. This one only has semi-known Billy Drago, and everyone else are just no-names(I certainly didn't recognize anyone else). The film has just about every action-cliché known to man; the tough guy hero, the female lead who can't do anything at all by herself, and is merely there to give the hero someone to save, the bad guy who's like the meanest damn SOB you could possibly imagine; not only is he a killer, a terrorist and an A-hole, he's also a rapist. The male lead was probably chosen for the role because he has muscles and a ridiculously deep voice. The female lead was chosen because she's attractive, willing to do nudity, and because she can look helpless and attractive at the same time. The action is straightforward with no surprises. The plot is ridiculous and unoriginal. The acting is laughable. The characters are clichés and stereotypes. The film is thoroughly predictable and the action is so simple and unexciting that its only possible use is eye-candy. All in all, the film has nothing at all to offer. Everyone should just avoid this... unless of course you're a really big fan of B-movies. I recommend this solely to fans of B-movies. Everyone else should just avoid this. 1/10

I thought that this movie here, Deadly Heroes was actually a decent movie. The casting was a different assembled one and how many movies does Billy Drago, Jan-Michael Vincent, and Michael Paré star in a film all together? Three unique actors all in one movie! Drago played a great and unusual psycho here in this movie which I think he is a great bad guy actor! Vincent played a good part and Paré was good as usual. Galit Giat who played the female baddie was really good. The action in the movie is good and the film starts off with a bang. It may seem like a different Delta Force movie since Billy Drago plays another and very similar psychotic drug lord but only this time his hair is shorter and a different color. I don't think that this film is bad at all and in fact I was quite interested through out the flick. Give this one a chance especially if you are a fan of the actors I mentioned above because I recommend it!