YMMV / The Delta Force

• Awesome Music: The main theme by Alan Silvestri is so good, it was adopted as the background music for Paul Page's famous teases for ABC's coverage of the Indianapolis 500 from 1988 to 1998, and again in 2001, though that particular tease was narrated by Al Michaels. When NASCAR's Brickyard 400 started in 1994, similar teases were done for that until 1996, and again in 1998. The final 400 tease was narrated by Bob Jenkins. So associated with Page are these teases, that he wouldn't let ABC do them for the 500 anymore unless he narrates them. ABC lost broadcasting rights for the 500 after 2018; its successor, NBC, whom Page actually called races for in the 1980s, is unlikely to reach out to him, as the tease for their first 500 in 2019 centered around the 50th anniversaries of the moon landing, and Mario Andretti's lone Indy 500 win. When Page replaced Mike King as the lead announcer on IndyCar Radio in 2014, he carried the main theme with him. It was used as the network's theme for its Indy 500 coverage for 2014, before returning to the modern instrumental of The Singing Hoosiers' 1961 tune, "The 500", in 2015.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Robert Forster's character's top henchman swears that he (or one of his allies) will drive a truck full of explosives straight to the White House one day, then comes Justice League, where Forster would voice the President of the United States. Also, Forster would play the United States Army Chief of Staff General Edward Clegg in Olympus Has Fallen where terrorists has seized the White House.
  • In the first half of the film, Robert Forster's character is Badass in a Nice Suit with a red shirt, characteristic shared with Forster's later character eleven years after this film.
• Narm: The characters in the poster are drawn such way that it looks like they're firing their weapons, even though they were clearly just posing with them originally.
• Nightmare Fuel: When the German stewardess is ordered at gunpoint to pick out the passports with Jewish names. She recoils in horror and, with tears in her eyes, begs, "You don't understand! I'm German! You can't make me do this!"
  • For obvious reasons, this is a special Moral Event Horizon for her nationality, and she's being dragged across it against her will. It is utterly agonizing to watch. Especially when the second-in-command terrorist, ironically the same one who had shown kindness towards the Jewish American child passenger, utterly unsympathetic in contrast to his boss's brief soft-spoken moment of some pity towards her reasons ("Very sorry, dear lady.") and only fanatically concerned with his and Abdul's mission and cause, snaps at her that six million dead Jews was not enough.
• Retroactive Recognition: Two of the background Delta Force members are played by an uncredited Liam Neeson and Mykelti Williamson.
• Irony as She Is Cast: All the Arab terrorists are played by Israeli actors.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Pete's death right after the team has escaped with all the hostages safely rescued.
  • The death of one of the navy divers is especially gutwrenching, as he had been beaten to a bloody pulp just to make a point to the rest of the passengers and then executed during the botched assault to further illustrate the seriousness of the terrorists' demands.
  • The stewardess forced to name all the Israeli passengers aboard the plane for the reasons mentioned above. You can tell it is destroying her to be part of something so heinous.
    • Also, after the stewardess list her account of the horrors of The Holocaust, notice the look of sorrow and discomfort on Robert Forster's face when his character forces her to do this. Despite the anti-Semitic nature of his character and staying in character during the scene, Forster himself was ironically Jewish-American and likely had his heartstrings pulled listening to her when the stewardess breaks down in front of him.
  • Both those actions with the purser and the diver's torture and death above were shown to prove a point about the hijackers's cause and their commitment, not that they really find pleasure in it no matter how vicious, somewhat heartless and brutal they can be.
  • The Israeli intelligence operative that provided Delta Force with the location of the hostages on Tel Aviv (who happens to be a priest) gets his church searched by the terrorists (the leader is not doing it out of any actual pragmatic reason — he just suspects the man because he's a Christian) and gets found talking on the radio with his superiors. The priest tells the leader "yes, my son, God will forgive you" and is dragged back to the terrorists' headquarters... and breaks out long enough to shout to Scott and Pete (who are watching from a van across the road) to run before being unceremoniously machine-gunned by the leader.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Some viewers could feel this way in regards to Abdul played by Robert Forster, given Forster is an American actor and destined to be an Academy Award nominee just over a decade by one year after this movie, he should be given more English-speaking lines then what the film shows and reveals more complex depths especially his Even Evil Has Standards motives mixed his several, but notable Kick the Dog acts as noted above with the German purser mostly by his underling. But given this is a typical action flick, it's just Black-and-White Morality. Even during the final fight between Norris and Forster, the latter should at least been given any lines before his character's Undignified Death with Norris responding with a Shut Up, Hannibal!.
  • Same can be said for The Dragon, who during his screen time, especially during the hijacking part, was able to show off some Evil Virtues that prompts him to Pet the Dog like his kindness towards the little girl who reminded him of his daughter aside from being a ruthless terrorist who had Kick the Dog like the aforementioned moment with the purser, though it can be perceived the latter's likely out of his brand of jingoism towards his commitment. However, he is ultimately given an anti-climatic Undignified Death under the bed ("Sleep tight, sucker") and forgotten very quickly afterwards.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: Despite being a typical caricature bad guy, future Academy Award-nominee Robert Forster, better known for playing heroes like in The Black Hole, plays a very convincing role as a Lebanese terrorist who is not just a Big Bad scumbag (who pales in comparison to the later villain Cota in the sequel Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection), but appears so Lebanese with the accent that masks his distinctive Brooklyn drawl and speaking some of the language that Caucasian American actor Forster complete with the mustache was so absolutely unrecognizable from his usual appearance and other acting roles that people forget he's in this film. While he's the villain, Forster gives him genuine depth as a man who doesn't enjoy violence but sincerely believes in what's doing and has some humanizing moments, refusing to harm women and children if he can help it, and Forster makes him a compelling character rather than just a generic evil villain the audience eagerly waits to see the heroes brutally dispatch. For his part, Forster loved the role, describing Golan as one of the best directors he'd ever worked with.

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