bozabozidar Review of The President's Man: A Line in the Sand

The President's Man: A Line in the Sand (2002 TV Movie)

Underwhelming and Unoriginal

[3/10 · 26 September 2020]

I vaguely remember seeing fragments of this movie in my childhood (the shot of Arabs holding the helmet of a downed American pilot and the scene when Chuck Norris kicks the villain so hard he flies off), but only recently did I watch the whole thing. The movie follows the frequently reused plot about an evil terrorist threatening the world who gets captured, only to escape his captivity soon afterwards, after which he and the hero have a showdown in the middle of a city (as seen in the Dark Knight, the Avengers, Skyfall etc). This may seem like the plot of an action-packed blockbuster, but this is actually a very underwhelming movie with limited resources that manifest in its boring and short fight scenes. In the beginning of the movie, the villains seem like they have a huge army and minions all over the world at their disposal, but when the protagonists finally start fighting them, they are reduced to a few hapless henchmen lead by an old man. As a counterweight to this, the US government is also depicted as a bunch of incompetent fools who can't do a single thing right, so the 3 main heroes constantly have to fix their mistakes. There's a lot of boring filler scenes which lead nowhere, and the fight scenes are short and underwhelming, mostly consisting out of just a few kicks being exchanged and stuntmen jumping and falling randomly. To make matters worse, Chuck Norris has only 2 very short fight scenes in the whole movie, whereas Judson Mills has more screentime and is closer to a central protagonist. Jennifer Tung is wasted as she spends all the important scenes just sitting down and talking. I would recommend this movie only to hardcore Chuck Norris fans, and only when there is nothing better to watch.