Silent Rage

Silent Rage
1982 - Columbia Pictures
Directed By Michael Miller



SYNOPSIS

Cops take out a deranged man (Brian Libby) after he kills two people. He's rushed into surgery barely alive and a radical procedure not only cures him but renders him invincible. Only the sheriff (Chuck Norris) can stop him now!



MY THOUGHTS

A great Saturday afternoon b-movie is a perfect mix of Walker, Texas Ranger and The X-Files.

Silent Rage is far from a perfect film but it's plenty entertaining.

The acting is atrocious. Apart from Chuck Norris doing his usual thing and the all-too-brief performance of Ron Silver, the acting is below b-movie range.
Stephen Furst is a young cop. He's essentially Flounder from Animal House with a gun and badge. 'Fat drunk and stupid' works well as a fraternity pledge, but it's terrible as a cop. Its a wonder how the character was ever able to graduate from a police academy.
Brian Libby (the villain) seems to be a knock-off of Michael Myers of the Halloween series, just without a mask. He shows little to no emotion and is often more laughable than scary.
Everyone else is completely one-dimensional.

The film features less Norris-style action than it should. Apart from an amazing scene where Chuck takes out an entire bar full of angry bikers, much of the rest of the film is just Chuck using his gun and the occasional fist. Those are nowhere near as entertaining as some of his other films' action scenes. They are plentiful though, so the film is rarely boring.

Silent Rage does add a supernatural aspect that is not present in any other Chuck Norris film. The unstoppable foe forces Norris to be more of an actual super hero than normal. It adds an extra cheesiness that helps to make this a great film for Saturday afternoon TV viewing.

Silent Rage is one of those films that you could easily chime in your own "Mystery Science Theater 3000" style jokes and hurl them at the screen. That would help make this film great... otherwise, its just a sub-par action film with some sci-fi aspects.