The Delta Force (film)
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The Delta Force is a 1986 action film starring Chuck Norris and Lee Marvin as leaders of an elite squad of special forces troops based on the real life U.S. Army Delta Force unit. It was directed by Menahem Golan and featured Martin Balsam, Joey Bishop, Robert Vaughn, Robert Forster, Shelley Winters, and George Kennedy.
The Delta Force was Lee Marvin's last film.
Plot synopsis
A group of Arab terrorists hijack an American airliner bound for New York City. Taking all passengers and crew hostage and diverting the plane to Beirut, the group, the pro-Khomeini New World Revolutionary Organization, make demands to the United States government that, if not met, will result in the death of them all.
As a compromise, the terrorists release the non-Jewish, women, and children passengers. The remaining hostages are transported to a militant controlled area of Beirut. Using a sympathetic Orthodox Priest, the Israeli Army Intelligence prepare an operation to free the hostages.
The U.S. quickly responds by sending in Delta Force, an elite counter-terrorism unit to rescue the hostages. Successfully infiltrating the terrorist compound, they rescue the hostages and flee to the safety of Israel on the ATW jetliner, before returning the U.S on a C-130 transport plane.
The film was followed by two sequels, Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection and Delta Force 3: The Killing Game in 1990 and 1991.
Filming Locations
The film was photographed entirely in Israel, making use of Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus's newly opened GG Israel Studios facility in Jerusalem.
The Beirut, Tel-Aviv and Athens airport sequences in the film were shot at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel-Aviv.
In some sequences, Hebrew lettering and Israeli Police emblems are visible on some of the supposed Lebanese airport barriers.
Historical connections
- The hijacked flight in the movie bears many resemblances with the real-life hijack of TWA Flight 847 in 1985:
- The route is Cairo-Athens-Rome (in the movie, the flight continues to New York City; in real life the final destination was London).
- Two terrorists took over the flight, the third one being arrested in Athens.
- The flight was diverted to Beirut and Algiers.
- The lead flight attendant (played in the movie by Hanna Schygulla) was of German descent and was asked by a hijacker to single out the Jewish passengers on board.
- Upon landing, one of the hostages, a United States Navy diver, was shot.
- The fictional airline in the movie, ATW (American Travelways), is an anagram of TWA (Trans World Airlines).
- The hostage rescue operation was inspired by Operation Entebbe, which was conducted by Israeli commandos in 1976. It was the subject of another movie by Menahem Golan, Mivtsa Yonatan (released in English as Operation Thunderbolt), in 1977.
- The beginning of the film replicated Operation Eagle Claw, the aborted attempt to rescue American hostages held at the U.S. Embassy in Iran in 1980.
Trivia
- Assaf Dayan, who plays Raffi Amir, is the son of renowned Israeli war hero Moshe Dayan.
- The Beirut terrorist militia carry pictures of Ayotollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the photographs can be seen in the school in which the hostages are kept.
- After being beaten back by the Delta Force squad, the leader of the Beirut militia proclaimes "attack the school!" in Arabic.
- The film reuses many actors from Menahem Golan's 1977 film 'Mivtsa Yonatan' (Operation Jonathan or Operation Thunderbolt).
- The account of the Delta Force rescue operation is historically inaccurate.
External links
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