As a fan of low budget filmmaking – especially when it spotlights new voices or contains a subversive message – I do not believe there is any shame in going "direct-to-video." ("Direct-to-VOD" or "Direct-to-Tubi" being the modern equivalent.) It is a totally valid release strategy for a number of worthwhile movies. However, especially during the Blockbuster Video peak years of the nineties, the bias against films foregoing a theatrical run wasn't entirely unwarranted. Many lazy cash-in sequels, unambitious action flicks, horror films of debatable merit, and exceedingly lame kids movies were released in this manner. You'd think, with a steady TV gig on “Walker, Texas Ranger,” Chuck Norris wouldn't need to do any of that stuff circa 1995. I guess not, as the former karate champ starred in “
Forest Warrior,” his first direct-to-video release, around that time. To add to that indignity, this latest collab with his brother Aaron was strictly within the kiddie camp. The resulting film is widely regarded as a low point for a star whose work rarely attracted critical praise in the first place.
Near the Tanglewood forest, a group of children composed of Austene, Justin, Lewis, and brothers Logan and Brian gather around a camp fire. An old man named Clovis relates a local legend to them. The story goes that, back in the frontier days, a man named Jebediah McKenna lived in the woods. His wife, a Native American woman, grew sick and he rushed off to retrieve some medicine for her. This is when he was attacked by bandits in the woods, physically beating them back but still being gravely injured. Rolling into the river and near death, the forest spirits revived McKenna. They gave him the ability to change into animals and made him the ghostly protector of the forest. The kids think its only a story. The next day, the youths discover a fort in the woods and make it their new club house. At the same time, a logging company owned by the greedy Travis Thorne intends to cut the forest down, much to the protest of the locals. It's not long before the loggers and the kids come into conflict. Luckily for the children, the spirit of Jebediah McKenna is there to protect them and defend the forest.
For most of its runtime, “Forest Warrior” is an almost insufferably mawkish presentation. The kids are all wide-eyed moffats, their actions and dialogue calculated for maximum adorableness. They spent much of the movie interacting with a bear cub they name Rags, who seems to rarely share actual screen-time with the child actors. Every facet of their lives and existence seem tied to this forest and their club house. Only Austene's life gets any additional depth. She has an often absent, usually intoxicated father. This subplot crops up for a few scene, an attempt to add even more syrupy emotion to the story, before the business in the woods is returned to. The villains are all two-dimensional bad guys, cartoonishly dumb and wicked who never pause at the thought of attacking or blowing up kids. Travis Thorne makes sure to announce that he doesn't intend to hire locals for his mill, because he cares so little about the near-by town. The bone-deep corniness of this writing peaks during the climatic montage of the youths sabotaging the baddies' vehicles,
sticking potatoes in their tail pipes and boards with nails under their tires.
That hokey quality penetrates into every aspect of “Forest Warrior.” The musical score by Bill Elliot is composed of a few melodies that are repeated throughout. Every time the villains or the mill are introduced, a thumping
Dr. Robotnik-esque theme plays. Every time Chuck kicks into action, a hard rock theme picks up for a few minutes. Most of Elliot's prior credits are
Disney Channel Originals, which is what this music sounds made for. The film is often broken up by reaction shots of various animals or repetitive montages of the inner workings of the mill, all evident attempts to pad the run time out. The writing is preachy and awkward, with the opening prologue going on for ten whole minutes. The lameness of the film seems to suck down the talent of everyone involved. João Fernandes has long since proven himself a talented cinematographer, doing good and sometimes great work on past Chuck Norris gigs. However, even his skills seem half-hearted here, “Forest Warrior” often looking flat in its imagery with blanket lighting.
That is what ninety percent of the experience of watching “Forest Warrior” is like, overly cutesy kids movie antics supported by writing and production values that can best be described as workmanlike and worst as tedious. The remaining ten percent, however, is composed of moments so preposterous, that they can't help but be amusing. This largely means the action scenes. A red tail hawk swoops towards some logging company stooges only to turn into Chuck Norris delivering a flying kick. The film then immediately launches into a fast-paced action sequence, scored to that corny rock riff, and suddenly feels injected with caffeine. Other highlights include Chuck stopping a chainsaw blade with his bare hand and turning into bear via some underwhelming digital matting. He also grabs a bad guy and stares intensely into his eyes, until the film inverts, in what I can only compare to
Ghost Rider's Penance Stare. The only non-Chuck related moment of goofy awesomeness in “Forest Warrior” is when an extremely underwhelming rock song on the soundtracks prompts all the lumberjacks to play their tools of deforestation like instruments. The fight scenes aren't great or anything. As in “Top Dog,” we are thoroughly in the era where Chuck's kicks, spins, and leaps mostly seem to be shot in long shots, close-ups on feet or fists, or with his back otherwise turned to the camera. However, these brief flashes of absurd actions still represent the few times “Forest Warrior” awakens from its sleepy, listless ambiance.
There's only one other mildly interesting thing about “Forest Warrior.” Much like “Top Dog,” the film represents a now bygone time when even right-wing types like Chuck Norris could agree with the libs on certain topics. After fighting racists and Nazis, Chuck is now here to defend the environment. It's a natural extension of the star's ongoing Native American mysticism gag, which “Forest Warrior” is unsurprisingly heavy on. He's protecting the woods and animals here, like some kind of gosh darn tree-huggin' hippy. He goes so far as to theatrically snap a rifle in half, something I think would get you ex-communicated from the Republican party in 2026. Not that “Forest Warrior's” environmental message is especially well thought-out. When your loggers are cartoonishly evil buffoons, it doesn't leave room for any genuine insight. I think “
FernGully” is a deeper reflection on the deforestation issue. Still, the film does represents a more innocent time. When macho ass-kickers were also rugged, salt-of-the-earth, cowboy, forest hermit types that acknowledged you shouldn't cut down every tree or slaughter every animal, before
internet con-men completely took over that corner of the American psyche.
Not that Chuck seems all that invested in “Forest Warrior.” For much of the film, he looms in the distance, watching over the children and trees, like some sort of fur-wearing, high-kicking Jesus. When called upon to speak any dialogue, Chuck's delivery is of a stiffness not seen since the “Way of the Dragon” days. A random moment when he teaches a kid how to kick someone in the head represents the sole time he has any spark in his eyes here. Maybe he did this one as a favor to Aaron? There are some notable names in the cast. Roscoe Lee Brown is the storytelling old man, his sagacious voice managing to make this stupid bullshit sound half-way believable. Terry Kiser plays the main villain, mugging and hamming up to such a degree as to make his performance in “
Friday the 13th Part VII” seem subtle in comparison. Michael Beck is the main kid's alcoholic dad, Loretta Swit shows up as someone's mom, George Buck Flower is briefly here. It all suggest that “Forest Warrior” had enough money behind it to not look and feel so drab and boring for most of its runtime.
The film was produced by Avi Lerner, the Israeli-born and South African-based producer who got his start with Cannon before launching his own production company,
Nu Image/Millennium Films. Lerner and his company would basically keep making the kind of action schlock that Cannon had success with into the nineties and 2000s, on considerably lower budgets and without much of the flair. “Forest Warrior” doesn't feature the Nu Image logo, being filmed in Oregon rather than overseas, but it still feels a lot like that kind of production. Presumably, Chuck's commitments to “Walker, Texas Ranger” is what kept him from making more shit for those guys. You can cut together about five minutes of amusing moments from “Forest Warrior” but, as a feature length motion picture, it's difficult to recommend. I won't say yet if this is the nadir of Norris' career, as we've still got some dire looking shit to wade through, but it is a fairly steep fall-off from the heights of his eighties cult classics.
[5/10][THE CHUCK OF NORRIS: 3 outta 5]
[X] Facial Hair
[] Jumps or Kicks Through a Window or Wall
[X] Performs Spin Kick or Spin Punch to Enemy's Face
[] Shows Off His Hairy Chest
[X] Sports Some Cowboy Getup
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