A Wing and a Prayer

Just when you thought it was safe to take to the skies: another awful aircraft movie is churned out. In the tradition of all bad disaster movies (in both senses of the word) this film has no redeeming elements, and provides an excellent case study on what to avoid when attempting character development, suspense or special effects. The foremost failing of the flying flop is its assumption that the viewer cares about the central characters. The only reason we may feel sorrow for these people is for their lack of acting talent. In scenes in which the female lead is 'crying' no tears appear in her eyes, let alone the viewer's. The rest of her time is spent cold-heartedly bossing around air traffic controllers while various planes almost collide with each other. Meanwhile, her 'husband' (you can almost feel the lack of chemistry between the two) mirrors his wife by barking orders at an inept pilot and co-pilot--who seemingly know nothing about emergency procedures--and spends the rest of his time nervously flailing his limbs and running his fingers through his hair as though on a prolonged caffeine high. After the plane defies physics by sliding around the airport on landing (obviously achieved by an undercranked camera, as vehicles in the background of the shot show), a suitably awful line is delivered to end the film. A survivor (of course, you also qualify as a survivor if you've sat through the length of the film) suggests, on how to return home: "How about we take a really slow boat". A more suspenseful two hours could be spent watching paint dry.

It seems strange knowing A WING AND A PRAYER was made as comparatively as recent as 1998 because I could have sworn this might have originally have been called AIRPORT 71 , 73 , 76, or 81 . Anyone else think it was written when disaster movies were all the rage in the cinematic world ? Anyone else think there might be a good reason it's been lying on a shelf for twenty five years ?

Having said that it might have actually have been written before the invention of the airplane , how else can you explain the writers getting away with a sequence of " he woke up and it was all a bad dream " very early in the film ? I guess being a TVM they can get away with this sort of red herring

Oh yes it's a TVM so we have to endure a lot of lovey dovey stuff between the two protagonists thereby holding up the story , but it's not much of a story as we're treated to all the trademark cardboard cutouts on a plane journey to boredom . There's the arrogant philistine , the ballsy stewardess , the cute kid but thankfully the singing nun and the alcoholic priest missed their flight and anything that can go wrong will , as long as it's not going to cut into the budget because this is a TVM remember

Air traffic controllers are proffessionals doing a high pressure job where other people would buckle under the pressure. They are higly trained coping with massive responsibility and do a great job. This movie does no justice to these hard working folks.

The writing team have no idea how air traffic controllers work, otherwise they would never have made so many mistakes. The head controller starts bawling her eyes out when she finds out her husband is on the flight, talk about being cool under pressure. And then she leaves her post to greet her husband at the runway (dont forget there are other planes stacked up in the sky at this time). How unproffessional and selfish is this woman?!

The pilots are asking the husband (an air traffic controller) what to do (pilots are trained for emergencies). Also the husbands hair must be covered with buckets of gel for his hair to stay in place during the ordeal.

The passengers on this plane are very calm when they see the wing on fire - surprisingly there is no "Airplane" style mass hysteria in this movie!

The plane lands, aquaplanes and does a 360 spin - The passengers make an emergency exit and then stand a few metres away from the plane gawping - the plane was on fire - it could still blow up!

The really awful aspect of this movies is that eight members have given this movie a ten star rating!! They probably believe that this is how Air Traffic controllers and pilots do their jobs - the writer of this movie should do us a favour and strap himself onto the wing of the plane and say a prayer.

The technical, procedural, and behavioral aspects of what really happens within an Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) is NOT what is depicted in this movie... Not even close!

First, the movie shows the controllers in a cramped low ceiling room with standard overhead lighting. In a real ARTCC, the ceiling is more than 20 feet high and the lighting is provided only at the M1 consoles (low lighting conditions).

There are multiple and separate backup systems within the ARTCCs, including radar systems and radio systems. As of the making of this movie, the ARTCCs had already been upgraded to a newly developed Voice Switch and Control System (VSCS) by Harris Corp., which has 4 levels of radio communication redundancy.

There are no overhead water pipes that could leak and cause lower floors to develop subsequent equipment failures or a mass outage as depicted in this movie. That's Hollywood for you!

This movie would have you believe that the ARTCCs are inadequate and have no backup systems if there is a failure... Absolutely ridicules!

Arrrgh! This is one of the cheesiest Shlock films I've ever seen. Even Skipping through all of the unbelievable crud that makes up the body of this turkey, They save the Topper for last - The Plane Lands ON FIRE, and the passengers mill about like zombies in a George Romero movie, sauntering off the aircraft, and then moving no more than TEN FEET from the burning jetliner. Aw sure folks, take your time... The Aircraft is only in Danger of

BLOWING UP...

Claudia Christian is the Only redeeming factor in this movie, it looks like She, at least, memorized the script, and didn't learn Her lines in-between takes. Avoid, Avoid, Avoid.