The classic 1986 movie Chuck Norris couldn’t stand: “I don’t believe it worth a damn”
Not to speak ill of the recently deceased, but Chuck Norris didn’t make many good movies. He starred in around three dozen of them, and they didn’t appeal to many beyond his core fanbase.
That core fanbase always got their money’s worth, though, with Norris handily roundhouse kicking his way through an onslaught of faceless henchmen and disposable villains, saving the world with little more than rugged machismo, an immaculately sculpted beard, and the ability to kick some ass.
The Way of the Dragon was by far the best thing he was ever in, which comes with its own caveats. One, it was his first-ever role in a feature, so he peaked right out of the gate. Two, he had little to do with its success, which was largely thanks to the martial arts classic’s writer, director, producer, and leading man, Bruce Lee, even if he held his own opposite the icon in the fight sequences.
Apart from that, Dodgeball, maybe? Even then, that was a cameo. For the most part, his films were cack, but they were cack that people enjoyed. However, as a cinemagoer, Norris had an axe to grind with an instant classic, one of the greatest war movies ever made, and a ‘Best Picture’ winner.
He didn’t decry Oliver Stone’s Platoon entirely, describing the performances of the ensemble cast as “superb,” adding, “There’s just no doubt about that” for emphasis, but everything else that unfolded in the Vietnam anti-war epic, which also won Stone the ‘Best Director’ prize, left a sour taste in his mouth.
Norris had his reasons, with his brother Wieland being killed in action in Vietnam in June 1970. “Maybe it happened. But I don’t believe it worth a damn,” he said. “If I was a Vietnam vet who’d put my life on the line over there, and then went to see Platoon, I’d be furious.”
He was referring to the scenes that depicted American soldiers laying waste to villages full of innocents and assaulting young women, events that 100% occurred during the conflict, with the My Lai massacre being the most notable example, an incident so horrific it was officially recognised as a war crime.
The early internet meme also called Platoon “a slap in the face to all the Medal of Honor winners,” causing him to question, “What about those guys? What about what they went through? The jeopardy they faced and the courage they showed? Why isn’t that up there on the screen?” The answer is simple, Chuck: because it wasn’t that kind of movie.
That’s without mentioning the not-unimportant fact that Stone was an infantryman who served in the Vietnam War himself, earning commendations and medals, so he wasn’t some oblivious screenwriter conjuring things out of thin air, either. You can understand why Norris hated Platoon, but it was hardly fiction.
