Apr 30

Apr 30 Movie Review : Invasion U.S.A (1985)

Before 9/11, American paranoia was oddly romantic. We dreamed of invasion the same way teenagers dream of running into their crush at the mall: unexpected, dramatic, and somehow validating. It wasn’t about real-world geopolitics; it was about the fantasy of being so important that even the aliens wanted a piece of America.

On Earth, there was Red Dawn in 1984, which asked us to believe that Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen could take on the Soviet military (spoiler: they couldn’t). And then there was Invasion U.S.A., which doesn’t even try to take itself seriously, except that it stars Chuck Norris, which is already a punchline.

The film opens with a group of Cuban migrants en route to Florida. But this isn’t your standard Reagan-era refugee drama. This is Cannon Films. The migrants are actually a front for a boatload of cocaine, intercepted by a fake Coast Guard ship led by Rostov (played by an awesomely villainous Richard Lynch), a Russian terrorist who’s apparently trying to conquer Florida with an army of random Latin American commandos.

His plan is incoherent. His accent is vague. His anger is biblical. And standing in his way is a denim-wearing ghost from the CIA's past: Matt Hunter (played by Norris), who appears to have wandered in from a different movie or maybe just an Everglades swamp.

Play Money Cultural Imperialism

Even if our political landscape increasingly feels like it was scripted by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, it’s difficult to take Invasion U.S.A seriously. There’s a scene where, in the span of six seconds, a man is shot in the dick, a coked-up woman is thrown off a balcony, and none of it involves Chuck Norris. That’s how chaotic this thing is. It’s the cinematic equivalent of your uncle at Thanksgiving yelling about the border while chain-smoking Marlboros and quoting Rambo out of context.

Invasion U.S.A is the spectacle of a certain type of grassroots patriotism taking over when shit hits the fan. Matt Hunter lives off the grid in the Everglades, airboating around and feeding raccoons or something, until Rostov’s crew blows up his house. That’s it. That’s the inciting incident. Not the invasion of America. Not the collapse of civil order. His house. It’s exactly like John Wick, except with airboats and sleeveless demin shirts instead of suits and dogs.

And yet, the movie treats this personal vendetta as a stand-in for national crisis. America isn’t under attack. Chuck Norris is. And in the logic of this universe, that’s basically the same thing. A certain type of person is going to simply nod at this affirmation, but these are people who a) haven’t seen the movie or b) you should definitely stay away from because they own too many weapons and feel too responsible for an abstract collective sense of safety that doesn’t concern anyone in particular.

But let’s take it seriously for a minute…

Let’s pretend, for a moment, that this story makes any sense. Rostov’s master plan involves smuggling cocaine into Florida via a boat of sacrificial Cuban refugees, killing everyone aboard, and somehow using the drug money to buy enough firepower to start a war. That raises at least three questions:

Who put the cocaine on the boat?
Why kill the people transporting it?
Can one boat of coke really buy a small nation’s worth of weapons?

The answer, of course, is "shut up, nerd." This was the mid-’80s, when Latin American coke was treated like magical contraband that could topple governments and enslave entire nations through sheer nose powder. It didn’t have to make sense. It just had to blow up real good. And blow up it does. Repeatedly, gratuitously, gloriously. All was well within the balance of the universe then.

But here’s the twist: this movie is fun. Not good, not coherent, not even socially responsible, but undeniably fun. It activates the part of your brain that used to make sound effects while smashing G.I. Joes together. It’s war-as-playtime, wrapped in denim and dipped in red, white and blue. There’s no subtext. There’s barely even text. It’s just explosions, revenge, and the vague idea that America is good because Chuck Norris says so.

You’ll feel a little gross watching it. You’re supposed to. Invasion U.S.A. is a movie for adults that was clearly written by three thirteen year olds high on pop rocks and Cold War propaganda. And somehow, that’s okay. Sometimes, embracing the idiocy is the point. If you try to take it seriously, you will lose your mind. If you treat it like a live-action cartoon about one man defending democracy with twin Uzis and a thousand-yard stare, it becomes kind of brilliant.

Not smart-brilliant. Not subversive-brilliant. Just boom-boom-brilliant. It’s a fantasy of competence, of moral clarity, of unshakable cool. All the things adult life is not. And for 107 minutes, that’s all it needs to be.