Silly but mildly entertaining all-action team-up of some notable real-life fighters and action stars of the time, ‘Force: Five’ is basically a reworking of director Robert Clouse’s ‘Enter the Dragon’ (and 1976’s ‘Hot Potato’), albeit sillier and with sub-par action.
One-time world kickboxing champion and ‘Jaguar Lives’ star Joe Lewis is Jim Martin, a covert martial arts expert who is asked to put a team together to infiltrate an island of a known cult leader (Bong Soo Han) and rescue the daughter of a US senator who has been indoctrinated into the cult. So, Martin assembles his best crew (Benny ‘The Jet’ Urquidez, Richard Norton, Bob Schott, Pam Huntington) and the force of five sneakily infiltrate the island and gain the trust of the cult leader and his disciples. But it’s not long before their cover is blown and all-out martial arts mayhem erupts.
Perhaps a best-forgotten American martial arts clunker that gave early starts to the likes of on-screen fighting greats Benny ‘The Jet’ Urquidez and Richard Norton, who steal the show from leading man Joe Lewis. A gifted fighter, his character is just a bit too wooden and smug, making you wish the likes of Norton and Urquidez had more to do. Bong Soo Han (Hapkido master who worked on the likes of ‘Billy Jack’ and ‘Cleopatra Jones’) is good value as the positively evil cult leader but doesn’t get much of a chance to fight, and the whole thing is just really bogged down in too much silliness: even for 1981.
The fight action, while copious, fails to elevate proceedings, the cast going on to do bigger and better things, and while this may never have reached the heady entertaining heights of ‘Enter the Dragon’, ‘Force: Five’ is unfortunately missing the goofy charm and energy of other Clouse efforts such as ‘Battle Creek Brawl’, ‘Gymkata’ and ‘China O’Brien’. Regrettably, ‘Force: Five’ is a bit of a slog, not as fun as it should be, and only for completist fans of its cast.
