Navy Seals Review

Navy Seals
While rescuing an American air crew captured by Mid-Eastern terrorists, Lieutenant Curran and his team of Navy Seals discover evidence that the terrorists have come into possession of dangerous high-tech weapons…

by Kim Newman |
Published on
Release Date:

14 Aug 1991

Running Time:

113 minutes

Certificate:

15

Original Title:

Navy Seals

Capable of being deployed on sea, air and land - hence the fairly stupid name - the eponymous commando task force on display here are used to kick Arab ass in this jingoist tripe action movie. One of those by-the-numbers salutes to men in uniform that is more likely to get you picketing military bases and wearing a white poppy, what we have here is a bunch of unattractive goons invading various Middle Eastern locales and playing with their toy guns while spouting supposedly amusing remarks about ragheads, liberally interspersed with footage showing our heroes in their off-hours looning about on the golf course to the strains of The Boys Are Back in Town or drunkenly paying tribute to their dead buddies by beating up strangers and burning down the occasional saloon.

The cliches come thicker than porcupine quills, most embarrassing being Joanne Whalley-Kilmer's entirely dispensible role as a breathless reporter thrown in to slow down the plot, and the excruciating sequences in which manly officer Michael Biehn - last seen to better effect as a psychopathic Navy Seal in The Abyss - has to comfort the girlfriend of a jolly comrade killed in action in order to motivate some horrible fake sentiment and flag-clutching patriotism.

With a cast of unappealing and undifferentiated grenade-tossers, a plot that dawdles from mission to mission with precious little sense of urgency, a terrorist villain whose statement of intent sounds a lot more reasonable than the good guys', and - most damningly - a cheap-looking set of scraps, this is really little more than a very pompous version of the kind of nonsense Chuck Norris has been doing in far less embarrassing fashion for so many years.

A very pompous version of the kind of nonsense Chuck Norris has been doing in far less embarrassing fashion for so many years.
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