Which is not to say he’s a good actor. In fact, he’s far and away the worst actor to enter the action star pantheon—and that includes Jean-Claude Van Damme and his Cajun accent in Hard Target. But Norris is so inviolably the real thing that even his mind-boggling thespian stiffness works as a badge of pride. Unlike, say, Hulk Hogan, it doesn’t feel like he’s trying to act and doing it badly. It feels like he’s just not impressed enough by acting to make any extra effort.
It is no coincidence Norris came to fame in the ’80s. He was the humble option among the explosion of triumphalist quipping Reaganite action heroes—constitutionally positive, unwaveringly secure. Norris’ onscreen persona is entirely free of moral ambiguity or inner struggle. The basic plot of all his movies can be found in the tagline for his ’70s exploitation film, Breaker, Breaker: “A town without justice. A hero without fear.” You will search for subtext in vain.
Even his characters’ names are unyieldingly, relentlessly whitebread: Josh Randall, Scott James, John David Dawes, Sean Kane, Dan Stevens, Matt Logan, Matt Hunter, Scott McCoy, Cordell Walker, John Shepherd.
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