Liam Neeson Showed Up In A Chuck Norris Action Thriller Before His Rise To Fame

Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus were the schlock filmmaking gods of the 1980s. Through The Cannon Group, they churned out exploitation movies that consistently, and shamelessly, delivered on the promise of gratuitous violence, even more gratuitous nudity, and production values that were generally above and beyond what you'd expect from, say, a movie that starred Lucinda Dickey as an aerobics instructor possessed by a ninja. Occasionally, they'd even make a film with a master filmmaker, because what they really wanted was to be taken seriously in Hollywood. This is how we got Jean-Luc Godard's "King Lear," Barbet Schroeder's "Barfly," and Andrei Konchalovsky's "Runaway Train."

Nevertheless, Golan-Globus knew their brand, and they kept multiplexes stocked with competently directed action movies starring Chuck Norris, Sho Kosugi, and Charles Bronson with a fat paycheck sticking out of his jacket pocket. These might've been ridiculous films, but they were real and guaranteed to play in theaters all over the U.S., so up-and-coming actors like Sharon Stone ("King Solomon's Mines"), Christopher McDonald ("Breakin'"), and Elizabeth Shue ("Link") gladly took the available work.

Cannon was always aggressively on the hunt for new talent they could sign to a financially friendly long-term contract, which worked out well for Michael Dudikoff. But there were other guys on the periphery that maybe didn't come on as the next Bronson, but, if you let them go out and make some real movies like, y'know, "Schindler's List," maybe you'd have something. Alas, the timing didn't work out for Cannon and Liam Neeson.

I am not going to get into the logistical and political mess of the hijacking of TWA Flight 847, but it was a huge deal in 1985 because it was believed to be carried out by the terrorist organization Hezbollah, resulted in the execution of United States Navy diver Robert Stethem, and involved the brutal abuse of Jewish passengers. It was a vicious operation that left the United States rattled at a moment it'd bought into the fiction of its renewed military primacy via "Uncommon Valor" and "Rambo: First Blood Part II."

A furious/commercially savvy Golan envisioned a righteous box office goldmine via a star-studded hybrid of "Airport" and "The Wild Geese." Had all gone according to plan, his action epic, "The Delta Force," would've starred Chuck Norris and Charles Bronson. Bronson, alas, was attached to an HBO movie, so Golan hired a true war hero in Lee Marvin as the head of the Delta Force unit charged with redeeming their failed rescue of American hostages from Iran in 1980. There were huge names playing a variety of characters — soldiers, hostages, terrorists — in this film. Shelley Winters, George Kennedy, Joey Bishop, Robert Vaughn, Susan Strasberg, Martin Balsam, and Robert Forster lent the film a credibility it didn't entirely deserve. After all, this was a military fantasy that believed killing off a hundred or so Islamist terrorists would do anything other than create hundreds more terrorists, thus perpetuating the cycle of violence that continues to this day.

Yes, "The Delta Force" is undeniably, irresponsibly entertaining, but if you can stomach its anti-Arab jingoism, you will be treated to brief glimpses of future "Schindler's List" star and action movie titan Liam Neeson hanging out in the background of a few scenes as a camouflage combatant. He doesn't say anything, and he fails to bring a horndog snowman to life, but Neeson is there and adjacent to action. It's a weird assignment for the actor because he'd already played Gawain in John Boorman's "Excalibur" and Kegan in Peter Yates' visual treat "Krull," but it's possible Cannon had promised him a bigger role in "Delta Force 2: Columbian Connection" (which co-starred Richard Jaeckel, Billy Drago, and sadness).

In any event, if you're a Liam Neeson completist, I highly recommend you cue up "The Delta Force" before you punish yourself with Bille August's listless, non-musical rendition of "Les Misérables." More Neeson is not necessarily the path to nirvana.