Menahem Golan’s Deadly Heroes is a less-known action film from 1993 with a screenplay co-authored by Damian Lee and Gregory Lee along with Golan. The movie brings together two famous action heroes of the ‘80s and ‘90s – Michael Paré and Jan-Michael Vincent – as the good guys with balls to take on a gang of international terrorists.
The main lead is Paré’s character Brad Cartowski, a former Navy SEAL, who intervenes in a terror attack at an airport after his young son alerts him to the presence of bad guys carrying guns. The terrorists succeed taking a bunch of hostages including Cartowski’s wife Marcy (Claudette Mink) to release in exchange for their leader Jose Carlos (Billy Drago). Since Marcy is not released, Cartowski goes after the gang to their island in African and another former Navy SEAL Cody Grant (Jan-Michael Vincent) is assigned to rescue Cartowski and bring Carlos to justice.
Deadly Heroes is a representative work of the stock action flick from the ‘80s-‘90s period. The tough guys from the military/law enforcement going after terrorists couldn’t get any more stereotypical in both plot and character and this remains the case for individual scenes in the movie. The ending is beyond clichéd. Interestingly, Cartowski’s character isn’t made revengeful despite the criminal gang leader’s cruel treatment of his hostage wife though revenge has been a huge cliché in action movies.
So what does Deadly Heroes really have to offer the audience? The best answer is Paré and Vincent. Paré had become an established action hero in the 90s and Vincent was in decline but probably had his loyal fan base still watching his every screen appearance. While the margin of performance in Deadly Heroes wasn’t very promising, both heroes do an okay job in their respective roles.
