Firefox : L'Arme absolue

Suppose a specially trained Soviet pilot sneaked into this country illegally during the Cold War and, with the help of Communist spy rings, managed to impersonate an American officer, insinuate his way into Edwards AFB or Area 51, was responsible for the deaths of several American enlisted men, stole a top-secret American fighter which topped anything the Soviets could put in the air, and flew it to the USSR.

That's the plot, only vice versa. If you enjoyed the old black-and-white propaganda films about the success of the underground resistance in Nazi-occupied Europe, you'll probably like this one. Instead of Nazis we have the Russians. Instead of the Gestapo we have Soviet officers but the only difference is the uniform. The Soviets are grim, beady-eyed, humorless, and ruthless. They torture prisoners and are annoyed when the prisoner happens to die. They sacrifice their own people without blinking an eye.

Instead of the heroic French or Norwegian or Czech resistance fighters we have Jewish dissidents who help the hero. They sacrifice their lives for the cause. When trapped, they shoot themselves rather than take a chance of being beaten into giving away secret information.

Instead of Errol Flynn we have -- well -- we have Clint Eastwood in one of his lesser efforts. (Flynn would have been an improvement in the role.) Clint is a top ex-pilot suffering from PTS syndrome but projecting fear is not his forte. He projects it by closing his eyes and breathing a little harder than usual. When he's shocked at something, he registers the emotion by raising his brows and opening his eyes a little wider without changing his grim, determined expression.

Nobody else in the movie really counts, but I loved Freddie Jones in the part of the British operative who explains the plan to Clint. Jones is a burly, florid man with a bush of frizzly hair like the older Dylan Thomas (a fellow Welshman) crowning his occiput. He overacts outrageously, not only chewing the furniture, but ravishing it before swallowing it. He makes Charles Laughton look like the Sphynx. His bobbing head and mellifluous irony make up for what Clint forgot to bring to the party.

The arctic scenes are nice, but the special effects are pretty clumsy. They're so bad that whenever you try to get into the plot while the plane is airborn, the cheesiness jolts you back into the realization that you're just watching a movie.

The airplane, by the way, is SO advanced that it reads minds when it carries out orders. You want it to fire a missile? Just think, "Fire a missile." But -- get this -- the equipment can only read minds that THINK IN Russian. This raises a number of interesting questions about the equipment. How about if you have a Muscovite accent? Suppose you think more like a Ukrainean than an ethnic Russian? If you simply visualize the missile being fired (or whatever) in your right cerebral hemisphere, will the thing still go? Will it go if you think in the conditional -- "If I were to think that the missile should go, then it will go"? If a missile is fired and you think, "Go, Missile, Go!", does it fire a second missile? Suppose you happen to be fixing your makeup in the rear-view mirror when you think the missile should fire -- does it blow you up? Would it fly backwards for a dyslexic pilot? If you think, "Hey, I was only kidding!", does the missile abort?

This film certainly does.

"Firefox", while definitely dated, is a good Cold War spy thriller that falls far short of being great. Clint Eastwood plays Mitchell Gant, a burned-out Vietnam fighter pilot who's enlisted to steal a high-tech, heavily-armed, stealth Soviet fighter plane right out of its Siberian hangar. The first half of the film is a John le Carre type thriller – Clint sneaking into Moscow, assuming a Soviet pilot's identity, and making his way to the experimental Firefox fighter craft. The second half, when he climbs into the cockpit of the Firefox, is where the real fun begins.

While entertaining, the film isn't particularly great – apart from Clint's gritty performance as Mitchell Gant, none of the other actors manage to stand out in any way. The jet fighter sequences also haven't stood the test of time – they looked great in the Eighties, but now they just look dated and unrealistic. Certain scenes in the film are little more than padding, buying breathing room between action scenes and doing little else. There's enough tension and action scattered throughout the film to make `Firefox' fun, but there's much better Cold War movies than this (`The Russia House' and `The Hunt for Red October' easily come to mind), and there's certainly much better Clint Eastwood movies than this. B-/C+

... and by my count this line was spoken at least seven times here.

This is a cold war thriller from Clint Eastwood about a Vietnam vet fighter pilot sent undercover and across the iron curtain to steal a new Soviet super-plane. The first two-thirds of the film are a treat, with a lot of tense scenes of Clint and his sympathetic Russian contacts narrowly escaping capture. The last section is where the film loses steam, with a lot of repetitious, dated fx shots of the jet in action.

Warren Clarke is memorable as Clint's chief contact. Also featured are Freddie Jones, Ronald Lacey, Nigel Hawthorne, and Kenneth Colley. As you may have noticed, there are no women listed; this is the rare film with no substantial female presence at all. The real star, though, other than Clint, is the fictional MiG31 "Firefox" fighter jet, invisible to radar, capable of Mach 6 speeds as well as full nuclear armament. The film also borders on science fiction with the jet's thought-controlled weapon systems.

It is a 50/50 proposition as to whether you will like this one. For me it was fun to see Eastwood stretch his directorial skills in a different direction, and even more fun if you actually remember the cold war...or were even alive during the cold war for that matter.

Clint Eastwood plays Michael Gant, a burnt out veteran sent into the Soviet Union on a desperate mission to steal the greatest warplane ever built.

Minimal training, mental problems, murderous allies, constant danger. His only qualification - he speaks Russian, he knows how to fly and he fits the flight suit.

What I like most about Firefox is how it really puts you in Clint Eastwood's shoes. His character Gant is no super spy - he's a war veteran suffering severe mental problems as a result of his POW experiences. At every twist and turn of the plot the movie captures his tension and fear. His inexperience and mistakes endanger him repeatedly. His only protection - a thin, unravelling web of deception and a fickle KGB desire to observe a little before pouncing.

A must see for fans of atmospheric espionage films and Clint Eastwood.

During the height of the Cold War, the Soviet military develops a super high-tech fighter aircraft - it flies fast, has deadly weapons, and has technology that allows the pilot to control guided missiles with his mind. Basically any army with this baby in its arsenal will have air superiority. Clint is assigned to steal it from the heart of Soviet territory for the USA.

The plot is fairly generic and in this day and age most Cold War thrillers have seem to have lost much of their edge, but this is nonetheless an entertaining film from Eastwood. It is not one of his best and not one that he will be remembered for, but no one can deny the slickness of the plane of the title. The final section of the film, which admittedly does take a while to get to, has Clint flying around and raising hell is a fun ride and on par with the final chase in "Where Eagles Dare" in terms of entertainment. However, the buildup has enough suspense to make the whole movie worth a watch. 7/10

Rated PG: violence