With Fauda’s new season about to drop on Netflix on September 8, you may be looking for some Middle Eastern action drama while you’re waiting, and one option is the classic commando movie The Delta Force, directed by Menahem Golan. It’s available in Israel on Apple TV and streaming platforms around the world.
The movie was released in 1986, when Golan and his producing partner, Yoram Globus, were at the height of their success with their Hollywood company, the Cannon Group, which churned out dozens of action flicks every year. Not surprisingly, many of their movies dealt with terrorism in the Middle East, like Operation Thunderbolt, about the Entebbe rescue.
The Delta Force is a slightly more polished, more international movie, where the heroes are US commandos rather than Israelis, and is loosely based on the 1985 hijacking of a TWA flight. The narration in the trailer goes, “The enemy doesn’t care who they hurt. Not how young, not how innocent, how helpless. Strangers united by the threat of death find the courage to defy their captors. It’s a new age of terror that requires a new breed of warrior. America’s elite anti-terrorist commandos are committed to destroying the enemies of freedom, because the stakes are more than pride, more than honor, more than justice, because they’re fighting to save American lives.”
It stars Chuck Norris as Major Scott McCoy, a tough, loyal fighter who quit the military after the fiasco of the US attempt to rescue the hostages held in the American embassy in 1980, in a scene that opens the movie. But Scott is lured back into the game by his commander (Lee Marvin) when a flight en route to Athens is hijacked and flown to Beirut.
Norris was perfect as the ready-for-anything commando, and the cast featured a great mix of American and Israeli stars. The international cast included German arthouse diva Hanna Schygulla, as the flight attendant ordered by the terrorists to separate out the Jewish passengers; Martin Balsam and Rat Pack member Joey Bishop (who makes a speech about how Beirut was once “the Las Vegas of the Middle East”) as two Jewish passengers and Shelley Winters (The Poseidon Adventure) and Lainie Kazan (who played Adam Sandler’s mother in You Don’t Mess with the Zohan) as their wives; Steve James, who plays one of the US commandos, and who married an Israeli model he met making the movie and had a daughter with her who is a singer and who auditioned for The Next Starfor Eurovision; disaster movie stalwart George Kennedy as a priest; Susan Strasberg, who was the original Anne Frank in the Broadway production of The Diary of Anne Frank, as a young mother; and Robert Forster, an all-American actor who played the terrorist leader and whose career was rescued from the doldrums a decade later when Quentin Tarantino cast him in Jackie Brown.
The Israeli actors were similarly stellar, including Assi Dayan as an IDF liaison officer who longs to join the action; Shaike Ophir, the actor for whom the Ophir Awards were named, as a Russian Orthodox priest in Beirut with a big secret; Uri Gavriel as a terrorist; Yehuda Efroni as a passenger; and starlet Chelli Goldenberg as a flight attendant.
It’s fun just watching this cast chew the scenery, and there are a few well-staged action sequences, particularly one in which Norris inexplicably rides a motorcycle to confront the terrorists. There are also a few scenes that show that the terrorists are being backed by the Iranian government. As the French say, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.”
THE WORLD bid goodbye this week to the iconic singer/actress Dolly Parton, whose appealing, self-deprecating persona charmed even those who didn’t usually enjoy her brand of country/pop music. Although she is best known as a singer, she had a movie career, and several of her films are available to stream in Israel. Her best-known screen role is Doralee, the cheerful secretary whose vile boss sexually harasses her in 9 to 5, which is available on Disney+ and Apple TV. This movie will also be remembered for her theme song, which is played during the opening, and the movie itself never quite matches the energy of the song.
But Parton is a delight as the woman everyone considers a dumb blond but who turns out to be as smart as she is cute, and who gets to deliver the unforgettable lines, “If you ever say another word about me or make another indecent proposal, I’m gonna get that gun of mine… and I’m gonna change you from a rooster to a hen with one shot! DON’T THINK I CAN’T DO IT!”
Shame on the unimaginative Hollywood execs for not giving her more and better parts. Other than 9 to 5, her best movie role was Steel Magnolias, where she played the “glamour technician” Truvy, who runs the beauty salon where much of the action takes place. As with 9 to 5, she plays a variation on Dolly’s persona. She also made an appearance in the finale of the Netflix series Grace and Frankie, in which she was reunited with her 9 to 5 co-stars, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. Parton played a “working-class angel” the heroines meet when they go to heaven in a near-death experience.
There are also a few documentaries and concert specials about Parton available on Netflix and Apple TV. The latter service also offers some of Parton’s lesser movies, including The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, where she sings the original version of her song “I Will Always Love You” to Burt Reynolds. That song became an even bigger hit for Whitney Houston, and many of Parton’s songs were recorded by other artists.
The Game, which is on Yes VOD and Yes London starting August 31, is an old-fashioned psychological thriller series with terrific performances. It tells the story of Huw Miller (Jason Watkins), a police detective who retires in the first episode. His career was derailed when he was chasing a sadistic killer and missed him even though he got close.
While Miller is looking forward to a quiet retirement playing golf with his buddy, everything changes when a new neighbor, Patrick Harbottle (Robson Green), moves in. Harbottle is handsome and charming, but he starts dropping weird hints that convince Miller that he is the killer who got away.
Meanwhile, Harbottle does everything he can to create conflict between Miller and his family, and seems to be playing the long game, while Miller blunders into the increasingly sophisticated traps set for him. None of it is groundbreaking, but it’s solid entertainment.
While in the past, Apple TV has only offered movies to buy or rent, it has quietly added some popular movies for free in recent weeks. Subscribers in Israel can now stream action classics Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds (the Spielberg film with Tom Cruise), and The Bourne Identity for free, along with the original Night at the Museum movie and the 2000 Charlie’s Angels, the best movie version, with Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu.
Also available for free now are Martin Scorsese’s 2023 historical drama, Killers of the Flower Moon, and the Brad Pitt racing movie, F1. To find these movies, go to the Apple TV home page and scroll down to “Great Movies Now Available.”
