My Cultural Diet

It’s easy to deride Chuck Norris’s movies, and in truth, some of them are pretty lackluster. But I’ve watched a lot of the man’s movies over the years, and I firmly believe that he believed in every single one of them. There’s an earnestness to them, and to Norris’s statements about them, that lends even the worst of them a certain charm. Hero and the Terror starts off like a typical Norris movie, with him capturing a sadistic serial killer and earning the city’s adulation. But when the madman escapes and starts another killing spree, Norris must track him down all over again — with the help of some roundhouse kicks, of course. But Hero and the Terror also explores the psychology of Norris’s character, who’s traumatized by his first encounter with the killer and consistently feels undeserving of his heroic reputation. Oh, and he’s also getting ready to become a father and struggles with being a good partner for his girlfriend, played by One Life to Live’s Brynn Thayer. Hero and the Terror doesn’t always do a good job of juggling these various aspects. There are moments when it feels more like a soap opera than a hard-boiled thriller, and there’s a bizarre sequence that splices the birth of Norris’s daughter with the killer claiming yet another victim. There’s even an ill-advised attempt at comedy when he faints as his girlfriend goes into labor. All of that works against the movie even as it leaves one wishing that it had been better, if only because it’s clear that Norris was trying to expand his range and repertoire here, and do something more diverse than just another action movie.

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