A Wing and 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!

Spoilers, but you really shouldn't be watching this anyway-

Now this was a lame movie. It jumps on the Die Hard 2 bandwagon eight years too late, featuring a plane full of characters we are supposed to care about getting into all sorts of bother during a storm.

The pilots, for a start, clearly don't have any qualifications as they don't seem to have the faintest clue how to cope in an emergency. Some guy with snazzy hair saves the day with the help of his selfish air traffic controller girlfriend, or wife, something, I don't know, I wasn't really paying attention. Selfish because she abandons the control tower at the "climax" to see her husband/boyfriend land in the plane, even though there are others in the sky that could be crashing all over the place due to her incompetence. I hope she gets fired. Oh, and the plane is supposed to be flying with one wing, except in some bad CGI shots it isn't even damaged. Note to the director: Telling the SFX guys what you actually want them to do is always a good idea.

Also we have the World's Worst Stewardess who spends the first half of the film wandering through the aisle looking bored and reassuring passengers by saying "Oh no! We're going to crash!" (Or something although those lines) when something bad happens. The second half of the film she spends trying to stand up in the luggage compartment while looking for a passenger's satellite phone with no real sense of urgency even though the plane is missing a wing. And no-one bothers to check what she's doing when she doesn't turn up for ages. The mainly emotionless passengers are kept off screen besides some guy and a small boy who is gullible enough to think a plane can fly with one wing, however in this film they can, anyway.

At the end the guy with the snazzy hair helps land the plane in a impossibly stupid fashion, after which everyone stands round the plane celebrating even though the fuselage has been hit by lighting and could explode.

The good points? "The Abyss" is referenced.

Overall, it isn't as diabolical as "Airspeed" but you really should avoid this dreck at all costs.

2/10.

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.

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

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.