Review of Chuck Norris vs Communism (2015) by Allan C — 16 Jan 2016

Absolutely brilliant documentary that celebrates the heroic underground of 1980s Romania where a small group of people began a blackmarket for dubbed American films, ranging from "The Terminator" to "The Blue Lagoon" to "Bloodsport" to "9 1/2 Weeks" to "Rambo" to "Pretty Woman" to "Long Wolf McQuade," and athough motivated by money and greed ended up giving the repressed population of Romania a glimpse into the forbidden western world and may have inadvertently helped to overthrow the totalitarian communist regime.

I haven't seen a film that made me feel proud to be an American in a long time and maybe it took a director from a foreign country to make me appreciate the the small things that we as American often take for granted.

In terms of filmmaking, director Ilinca Calugareanu mixes interviews with people who grew up watching these forbidden films and the people involved in the smuggling in the films. The documentary also uses some very well made reenactments of tension filed border crossings with contraband tapes, recruitments of the one woman who dubbed every single film that hit the Ramian underground VHS blackmarket, and most brilliantly, the groups of people watching "Rocky" or "Rambo" and being utterly inspired.