Cannon Pictures.  You know their logo.  You know their product.  Picture Chuck Norris, Lee Marvin, screaming, pulsating patriotic music, raining blasted Arabs.  You know the score.

Chain of Command (1993) is built on the same industrial grade stereotypes.  This one has a complex (and confusing!) plot line.  There is our hero, American studmaster and wise cracker, Merrill Ross played by a very doe eyed Michael Dudikoff.  He squares off against almost everyone and ends up shooting guns and his mouth off with gleeful abandon.  In fairness he is targeted by enemies (who more of ten than not are ALSO friends during the narrative).  The locals are as fictional as their country, yet good old fashioned wanton gunfights and explosions seem par for the course.  The oil-rich Qumir is highly inflammable, both politically and for its main export.

Not helping matters is the US Ambassador who bullys his staff from his office gym. He is Goofy with pecs.  His dimwitted CIA chief could not break out of a minimum security lock-up.  Qumir’s leaders are dull as marshmellow knives. Only the terrorists have nads (and more).  They may be diabolical, but kill with some efficiency. Keren Tishman plays the female lead.  Beyond her hot chic persona, she is everybody’s headache and yet key to the whole knotted mess (And you know Isreal  was bound to come up, this is the Mideast and has a reputation to maintain).

On the plus side there is a nice basement gameroom brawl between Ross and the baddest bad guy.  The ogre’s dying words “Mother told me there would be days like this” get points for bitter cuteness.

Just plain bitter, and on the negative side, was R. Lee Emery’s performance. Emery is awesome being real mean.  The meaner the better.  Half arsed nasty Emery is like runny eggs. Oh come on. “Woosy skirted” would be how I’d rate his screen persona.  Push Marines out of crashing planes, scream till your burst into flames, but a doopey oil exec—DO YOU HEAR ME PRIVATE!!!!!.

There have been a few makes of “The Beast”.  This one is about a T-62 Soviet tank taking on the Afgan (Pushtun) rabble during the 1980’s Soviet-Afgan War.  Besides the pure savagery given, taken, and shared by all, there are themes of loyalty, trust, and a nod to Kipling.  Hustling the East is at best a risky affair.  The film is beautifully shot and full of in your face reality. Honest uses of authentic languages.  Even the film is shot in Asia, I think.  Isreal (most likely the Negev) makes a decent ersatz Afganistan.  The country is rugged and no place to get lost in in peace.  In war, aye mami!

Isreali directors–like actors–don’t usually get much press.  This is a travesty, at least with Mr. Nesher.  Nesher is big in Israel, real big.  He has made such magic films with The Troupe and Turn Left at the End of the World.

Nesher has tackled comedies, musicals, and dramas with aplomb and a real sense of humanity. Nesher appreciates and uses music and plays it, like his characters, with unbeatable timing.  Avi has hit the American screen with movies such as  Taxman and Timebomb.

This is a musical of sorts.  It is set after the Six Day War in Isreal.  The Troupe travels by bus, visting army camps, and singing.  The songs are gems (subtitled) both lyrically and musically, folksy and refreshing even to a very distant New Englander like myself.  Like M*A*S*H which it strangely resembles, there is lots of love, tensions, work, play, and pranks to subplot the premise. This movie is a classic in Isreal.

By nature, I am moderate on religion.  But I enjoy good music, and even more, music with a message.  That brings up Jesus Christ Superstar, a rock opera of, a-hem, biblical proportions, famous for Webber-Rice sound wall.  Produced in the same era was The Troupe, the jazzy Isreali “musical” picture that is in its own way both a cult classic and a national classic.  Both are moving, rousing movies set in the Holy Land and filled with catchy songs (the “Songs of Solomon reference).