Firewalker is a 1986 action comedy directed by J. Lee Thompson and produced by Cannon Films and Golan-Globus, purveyors of some of the finest vintage 1980s action cheese on record.
Max Donigan (Chuck Norris) and Leo Porter (Louis Gossett Jr.) are second-rate fortune hunters and longtime friends in search of their next big score. A visit to their favorite dive bar in rural Arizona puts them in contact with Patricia Goodwin (Melody Anderson), in search of men who are fearless in the face of danger...and not too bright. Patricia has had occasional psychic flashes throughout her life - but none so strong as the visions she's been getting about the treasure map she recently came across. With the promise of treasure, adventure and finally finding their ticket to the easy life, Max and Leo agree to join in the hunt. A mysterious antagonist known only as Coyote (Sonny Landham) dogs the trio from Arizona down to the Central American jungle, in pursuit of something more than treasure.
Firewalker contains example of:
- Accidental Aiming Skills: Pretty much the only way Max ever hits anything with a firearm.
- Action Duo: Max and Leo before meeting up with Patricia.
- Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: Most of the movie is tongue-in-cheek action treated without the least bit of seriousness. The interlude where the trio spend a night with Max's old friend Corky, however, is surprisingly bittersweet. Max realizes Corky has lost himself, a fate he fears he might share without Leo there to keep him grounded, and that they are likely saying goodbye for the last time.
- And the Adventure Continues: The movie ends with Leo, Max and Patricia relaxing in a luxury resort in the South Pacific...and the General tending bar.The General: So gentlemen, we meet again.
- Appeal to Force: Max and Leo typical style of dealing with any situation at hand is to brawl their way - either in or out of it. People not talking? Punch them until they will. Natives attacking them? Shoot them until they stop. They aren't particularly subtle adventurers.
- Arrow Catch: Coyote does it with the gold dagger when Max tries to throw it at him, without so much as a blink.
- As You Know: Leo is forced to forklift quite a lot of exposition throughout the story, and almost all of it is done as him "reminding" the obvious facts to his air-headed friend.
- As Long as It Sounds Foreign: While dressed up as two Catholic priests, Max and Leo end up tangled into giving the last rites to a dead man by the soldiers that just killed him and are busy looking for foreign spies. Trying to keep their cover, our adventurers start to improvise.Max: Say some LatinLeo: I know none!Max: You think they do?
- Bad Guy Bar: Tabbs is your regular den, but Max and Leo frequent there - and so do other men of "questionable character".
- Bald of Evil: The General, a fact he bears the teensiest grudge over.
- Banana Republic: San Miguel, the little Central American country where the Firewalker hid his gold before traveling north.
- Batman Cold Open: The opening scene, with crazy car chase over the dunes and colourful villain, has nothing to do with the rest of the movie, simply being there to set up the tone and characters.
- Berserk Button: Never call Leo Porter a sissy - or Patricia a fruitcake.
- And don't you dare laugh when Corky says he plans on becoming king.
- Black and Nerdy: Leo, who is clearly the smarter of the duo and one that has any actual - if basic - knowledge on history.
- Blown Across the Room: It wouldn't be a Chuck Norris vehicle if people weren't flying after getting a roundhouse kick in their faces.
- Book Dumb: Max might be able to get by and get information out of others - by force, if needed - but he has absolutely zero academic knowledge of any kind. Notably, his only way to measure finding a lost site of unknown culture in the end is to ask where's the gold, as the discovery itself doesn't occur to him as worthwhile.
- Bookends: The movie begins and ends with the heroes meeting up with their mysterious nemesis, the General.
- Brains and Brawn: Leo handles the navigation, translation and research; Max takes care of the roundhouse kicks to the face.
- Cigar Chomper: Max is almost always chewing a short stub of a cigar.
- Chekhov's Gun: The golden dagger the heroes find in Arizona.
- Chest of Medals: Corky still wears a row of medals on his Marine uniform, though they were presumably earned.
- Cloud Cuckoolanders Minder: While Max isn't a full-blown Cloud Cuckoolander, Leo still plays this role for him, best seen when Max realizes how far down the rabbit hole Corky really is.Max: Don't ever let me go that far, Leo.Leo: I won't.
- Conveniently Placed Sharp Thing: Inverted. Max makes one out of a glass bottle of water he was given to torment him while left bound in the scorching desert sun. Since he has nothing to shatter it with, he instead crushes it in his hand and uses the remaining shard to cut the rope.
- Damsel in Distress: Patricia falls into this near the end, though Leo takes a turn as a Distressed Dude as well.
- Dramatic Wind: Tall Eagle gets some during his introduction, despite sitting inside his cabin. While Patricia is spooked, Max fails to notice anything weird going on.
- The End... Or Is It?: While the trio is celebrating the successful ending of their recent adventure, the general from the opening shows up behind the bar, laughing maniacally.
- Enemy Rising Behind: Leo is ambushed by one of the "fallen" Indians at the burial site.
- Excuse Plot: The film doesn't even pretend to go beyond the initial pitch of "two guys, one girl and their jeep in search for Aztec gold", being a collection of loosly connected action bits that, short for the finale, could be easily reshuffled in any order and provide the exact same story.
- Failed a Spot Check: Max has rather... spotty perception. Including once missing an entire cave entrance, which was just behind a tree. Leo wearily has to point it out to him.
- Freudian Trio
- Gilligan Cut: The film really enjoys building its gags around this trope. Two of the most notable examples:
- After destroying their only bottle of water, Max and Leo are still stranded on an unspecified desert, far away from civilisation, obviously thirsty.
Max: All I can think is a beer from Tabbs.Leo: Yeah, that's 5000 miles from here, in Arizona.[Smash Cut to them being already outside of the bar, safe and sound]- As they are about to venture into a jungle
Max: No matter what happens, let's just keep our heads.[Smash Cut to Max and Leo being pushed over a tree trunk by a man wielding a machete, preparing to behead them] - Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Remember kids, never act like a dadgum sissy!
- Greed: Leo is far, far more money-driven than any other character in the story.
- Handsome Lech: Max is being played by Chuck Norris in his prime, yet he is just an amazing creep.
- Heavy Sleeper: While their plane's engine stalls and then gets busted, throwing a lot of smoke and the pilot has to be forced by Leo to stay in the cabin and try to land (which goes pretty rocky itself), Max is just doozing out through the whole thing.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Max and Leo. They've been adventuring together for years, and when he thinks Leo has been eaten by an alligator, Max is devastated.
- Human Sacrifice: Coyote plans to use Patricia's blood - all of it - to unlock the powers of Firewalker for himself.
- Idiot Hero: Max in spades. There are numerous situations where he's easily tricked, stupefied or lacks the most basic knowledge.
- Implacable Man: Coyote somehow survives a gunshot wound that apparently killed him at first and then continues to fight after also being stabbed with the dagger in the back. Fortunately, he is not immune to roundhouse kicks.
- Insulting from Behind the Language Barrier: In the lead up to the bar fight, a large man curses out Max in Spanish. Leo duly translates, saying, "He said your mother was a pig and your father was a dog."
- Invulnerable Knuckles: Zig-Zagged. Some of the brawl scenes go normally, while others require from the characters to nurse their hands. Notably, at one instance, after punching their way into a bar, Leo clearly hurt his hand - and so did Louis Gossett Jr., accidentally punching a poor extra straight in the nose.
- Luck-Based Search Technique: The passage deeper into the temple ruins is behind the stone throne, on which Patricia sits while complaining at Max's inability to find the entrance.
- Magical Native American: Tall Eagle, the shaman who explains the backstory behind Patricia's map. He seems aware of and resigned to the role, and deals with it by getting in as much snark as the movie will hold.Tall Eagle: (watching the trio drive away) I don't know how Tonto did it.
- Match Cut: A hilariously failed attempt is done with the anaconda snake in the jungle, where the transition is done into an entirely different shape.
- Mayincatec: Since the film is tongue-in-cheek in nature, this even gets invoked when discussing the ceremonial knife and the nature of the treasure they are looking for: a Mayan priest taking his disciples and gold up north, to reach the Aztec territories and hide it there, where nobody would look for it.Max: So it's Aztec or Mayan?Patricia [pointing at the carvings] Both. This is Mayan, and this is Aztec Sun God.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: While Coyote is using magical rituals that are most definitely real and bear actual, tangiable results, it's more on the fence with other characters.
- Particia's abilities can be played both ways - either she's a genuine medium, with minor precognition and fortune telling or just about everything she ever fortell or decided upon was a lucky coincidence.
- Similarly, just about anything regarding Tall Eagle and his dramatic presentations can be brushed off as random chance and theatrics or him pulling some "native magic".
- Metaphorically True: The Red Cyclops from Patricia's dreams turns out to be a one-eyed Native American.
- Moment Killer: Just as Patricia and Max start to kiss, something makes a weird noise, and Leo disappears, nowhere to be seen.
- Mood Whiplash: The entire "gag" based around Max and Leo pretending to be priests delivering the last rites is clearly intended as a comedy, except there is a dead man who has been brutally killed by the soldiers. While he turns out to be still alive in the end and "just" badly wounded, the scene is very awkward.
- Naughty Nuns: The soldier who corners Patricia in the cornfield thinks this is what he's getting when she strips out of her disguise (into a button-down blouse and shorts, but still showing a lot of leg for a nun).
- No Communities Were Harmed: If you pay attention to the map of Central America, it's full of fictional countries. San Miguel itself is obviously made up Banana Republic where eastern half of Honduras is.
- Non-Action Guy: Leo. The one time he picks a fight, he spends a good five minutes getting literally tossed around the room before Max steps in.
- It's worth noting he is a better shot than Max, however.
- Noodle Incident:
- We never learn why the General blames Max for costing him his hair, or if that's what led to his men chasing them through the desert.
- Max and Leo have been on fifteen previous treasure hunts, only three of which turned a profit.
- No Sense of Direction: Leo tries to play navigator in the opening chase scene, but Max isn't having it. The results are...not optimal.Leo: Two hundred miles of stinkin' desert and you have to drive us into a stinkin' pool of stinkin' water!
- Old Friend: Corky, Max's sergeant from their days in the US Marine Corps, who has set himself up as a rebel leader (and aims to be king) in the Banana Republic where the Firewalker's treasure is supposedly hidden.
- Old Soldier: Corky, still looking for a war to fight because he doesn't seem to know how else to live.
- Pinball Projectile: How Max scores one of his two kills with a gun throughout the movie. He shoots at an attacker facing them, from around twenty feet; the bullet spends almost fifteen seconds ricocheting around the cave, then kills the enemy by striking him in the back.Leo: ...nice shot.
- Pistol Whip: Leo comes to rescue Max from a fiendish, clearly magical vamp - by smashing her head with a pistol grip.
- Plucky Girl: Despite all the zany adventures and occasional brushes with death, Patricia never flags in her pursuit of the treasure.
- Psychic Powers: Patricia claims to have had psychic visions all her life. The closest we see in-story is when she stabs the ceremonial dagger into the exact spot on the map where they need to go.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Max and Leo, with the excitable and spontaneous Max kept somewhere close to planet Earth by Leo's forethought and planning.
- Self-Parody: Chuck Norris convinced the producers to support the film in part so he could have a little fun with his image as a stoic, hardcore action hero. Max is affable, not too bright and an astoundingly bad shot (he's still Chuck, though, so his roundhouse kicks work just fine).
- Small Name, Big Ego: Max considers himself a big shot, while he's down-to-his-luck traveller that sometimes succeeds with his expeditions. He gets jobs by random chance, too.
- Temple of Doom: The ruins of the site build by Firewalker. As pointed out by Max, there has to be an entrance to it, if not by a moving wall, then a trap in the floor - and he ends up finding both of those, neither as a welcomed thing.
- Thrill Seeker: How Leo describes Max - both enderingly and to admonish him. Max himself later mentions that the mundane life is the only thing that truly scares him.
- True Companions: Leo and Max start out the story as this; by the end they seem to have included Patricia as well.
- Unwilling Suspension: Leo is bound and hang by Coyote over a hot spring's boiling water. And the water starts to rise!
- The Vamp: The native woman summoned by Coyote's ritual, who proceeds to seduce Max in an attempt to kill him.
- Wacky Wayside Tribe: The band of guerillas under Corky's command.
- Will Talk for a Price:
- The bartender that sends the gang to Tall Eager. He isn't even even subtle about it.
- Max tries it later to patrons of a bar in San Miguel. This time around, he accidently starts a Bar Brawl, offending the wrong people.
- Whole-Plot Reference: It's equal parts Romancing the Stone and the previous year's King Sol's Mines (done by the same director, no less).
- Would Hit a Girl: One of the Indians knocks Patricia cold with a mean haymaker.
