Review: Firewalker

Adventurers Chuck Norris and Lou Gossett Jr. are hired by Melody Anderson to help her track down missing Aztec gold. Bad people also want it, including the granite-like Indian warrior/supernatural entity El Coyote (Sonny Landham). Will Sampson plays a benevolent but possibly commercially-driven Native American shaman, John Rhys-Davies plays a roguish acquaintance of Norris’ named Corky, Ian Abercrombie is a displaced cockney, and the dated Fu Manchu stylings of Richard Lee-Sung stink up a few scenes as The General.

Equal parts shit Indiana Jones rip-off and failed buddy movie, this 1986 Cannon offering from director J. Lee Thompson (whose career went from “Cape Fear” to…working for Cannon) tried and failed to give us something different from Chuck Norris. “Romancing the Stone” it ain’t, this adventure misfire is in closer keeping with the Cannon-released “Allan Quatermain” duds. From the cheap and stereotypical music score by Gary Chang (“Death Warrant”, “Under Siege”, “Double Team”) to the complete lack of aptitude for humour by Norris, and the seriously shrill performance by Melody Anderson (get it?), this one never manages to get off the ground.

Poor Will Sampson looks in horribly ill condition here playing a corny Native American elder/shaman stereotype. He and Sonny Landham must’ve seriously needed the cash given the embarrassing racial stereotyping they engage in here. Poor Landham (who died this year) had a great voice, but is given no chance to give a decent performance with the dialogue screenwriter Robert Gosnell (who has written a couple of martial arts movies no one has ever heard of) has afforded him.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the buddy movie stylings of Norris and Lou Gossett Jr. is one of the least sucky things about the whole film. That’s entirely attributed to Gossett, who some might say should be ashamed of many of the jobs he has agreed to over the years, but nonetheless he fails to look embarrassed here and does what he can. Meanwhile, John Rhys-Davies (who appeared in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “King Solomon’s Mines”) generally gives the same fun, gregarious performance whilst playing an array of ethnicities, and here he adds an unconvincing American accent. Still, he’s the only one truly having fun here. He and Gossett give more of themselves than the film deserves. Look out for Mr. Pitt from “Seinfeld” Ian Abercrombie doing the worst cockney accent since Dick Van Dyke- and Abercrombie is actually English! Woefully unconvincing performance, though in fairness Abercrombie did move to the US in his teens.

Norris tries to play a light-hearted romantic lead here…and it doesn’t go well. I mean, it’s a little difficult when Anderson is Kate Capshaw-levels of irritating, but his romantic patter shows why this side of him wasn’t often called upon: Chuck Norris is a bit of a dork. The dialogue overall is atrocious, with Anderson calling Norris ‘Bucko’ and Norris mustering up all his 1950s religious Conservative square-dom to refer to Gossett as a (and I quote) ‘Dad gum sissy’. Yep, Chuck’s hip, y’all. Chuck fares better in his few moments of fighting, particularly a bar fight, and yes of course one of the human punching bags is bar fight punching bag regular Brandscombe Richmond. That guy’s head sure has had a helluva lot of meetings with someone’s fist over the years.

A lousy script, cheap synth score, cultural insensitivity, and unconvincing romantic leads sink this uninspired, tedious  rip-off. It’s better than Chuck’s “Invasion USA” and Cannon’s “Allan Quatermain” films, but so is explosive diarrhoea.

Rating: D