Strike Force

This was a 60-minute pilot for a show that never happened. Yorkshire TV and director Mahoney wasted the unprecedented access that was given to the production by the RAF by relying on stereotype in place of character and indulging in more or less every Top-Gun cliché they could dream up.

It's a shame, really; UK armed forces are chronically under-represented in the America-centric modern media, and it's easy to feel that the rich visual possibilities offered by such a series were rather squandered.

But as a TV show: hopelessly obvious drivel.

This 90 minute TV movie can best be described as like Top Gun but with more story. The drama is more meaty. The inter-relationships more interesting and complex. Predictably, it has a macho, high-energy cool sounding soundtrack (comparisons to Top Gun inevitable) during the aerial sequences. Which are themselves well-executed and exciting to watch. If it had come to a series, I would compare the show as being to the RAF what Ultimate Force was to the SAS. Recommended!