Ameaça No Ar

Director Jim Wynorski sure works a lot in tinseltown, but is on autopilot most of the time. This film is typical of his 'espionage / "military action" thriller genre. Generally mediocre acting, writing and direction that harks back to the glory days of Golan/Globus back in the 1980s. Wynorsky sure like military action thrillers, but he'd better get a military advisor one of these days.... the uniforms are either atrocious or worn wrong, the tactics are laughable, the weapons are many times inappropriate for the usage/anachronistic/obsolete, and EVERYONE who ever has worn a beret in a Wynorski film has always worn one three sizes too small!!! Too Funny! A waste of good talent. Costas Mandylor, Hudson, Sadler, Divoff and all the others have done much better in other films. Things to watch for: a) Costas Mandylor's character slips a package of high explosive into his shirt (rather than carry it in some sort of package or bag) when he's on the helicopter riding into battle. b) The usage of stock footage from Christopher Walken's 1980 film "The Dogs of War". In fact this director uses TONS of stock footage from other, larger budgeted films in a lot of his projects. Spotting them is always fun. :) This is a good time killer if you are an afficionado of "bad cinema". If you like well done military action, forget it. The battle sequences are truly bad and the 'commando's carry too little equipment, the nitpicker who is a fan of military action movies will find tons more to criticize! ;)

Another B action movie with cheap sets, laughable script and mediocre acting. Were we to expect anything different from Wynorski? Why did the makers bother with this one at all. Highlights from this film are the appearances of Ernie Hudson and William Sadler appearing together as President and leading commander respectively.

Satellite ran this stinker late last night and, what seemed on the surface an interesting premise was lost quickly in the poor writing, stiff and otherwise horrible acting, mute extras, and overall lack of direction. Here are but a few examples: there are no colonels in the US Navy; men on the disabled sub were having difficulty breathing, but they were not breathing "carbon monoxide" as the med staff suggested unless their exhaust was leaking into the compartment; lifting off from an arms seller's supposedly isolated base of operations, the Nighthawk rolls along a clearly marked runway, then passes a VOR station, a type of navaid that would assist in identifying the location of this base. How about a GPS receiver that we're to believe also transmits its location, despite it being noted in the dialogue as simply for finding one's position?

Most of the dough must have been blown on the really cool opening sequences that hooks the viewer, these scenes depicting Navy fighters roaring through and taking out an urban area, 'cause from there on out, it's the movie itself that proved stealthy.

I don't know who came up with this film, but the casting director and the props person need to be glued together for about a month just to teach them a lesson. President Ernie Hudson? Do you take us for saps? Did anyone notice that during the tense negotiation scene with the bad guys, the President and his cabinet are sitting in what could be characterized as a small grade school classroom? watching a 19 inch tv monitor? while all assembled around a small dinner table? You can actually see them all being visibly uncomfortable, since they all can't fit into the picture at once. Ernie has a look on his face as though the camera crew didn't let him eat any catered donuts that morning--he's hungry and wondering where his life went.

Isn't the President supposed to have a big "situation" room, with padded chairs, big screen tv monitors and a huge conference table for when he negotiates with bad guys? If I were a bad guy, negotiating with Pres. Hudson while his staff all has to stand over his shoulder so they can see the tv would be impetus for all kinds of mischief. I bet when one of them stands up, he better call "fives" or someone takes his chair.

And who wrote Ice-T's lines? I certainly hope it wasn't the Ice-Man himself. Note to self, Ice: any tough-sounding one-liner that ends in the phrase "peach trees" is not all that tough to begin with. Wasn't this guy a rapper? Can't he sound any more intimidating than that?

Ice - T vs. Ernie Hudson in a battle for the world? Perhaps under-water living is the life for me, after all. Do yourself a favor..don't watch this movie. Go rent Ghostbusters, put on an Ice-T CD, and punch yourself in the groin for 2 hours.

Apparently there were more affects from the Y2K problem than we knew about, like this movie made in 2000 for example.

When it came on TV early this morning I came prepared with my IMDb.com in hand. So I already knew it was a stupid movie, but I wanted to see what the reviewers were talking about.

But I won't go into it, you really have to be at least a "Colonel" in the Navy to grasp the technology in this movie. As a prior Marine Corps Officer, I was sick to my stomach to see the supposed Marine Corps personnel in the "White House", with their bathrobe like uniforms and long hair. They could have hired the lowliest Private in the USMC to provide technical guidance at $45 a day, and he/she would have fixed almost every technical flaw of the military innacuracies.

And when the "Colonel" of the Navy reported to the President, I pretty much had it. The movie is still on, but I cannot watch it anymore.

BTW, if you want to see a really good "flying" movie, that was made using a lot of stock footage from an earlier movie, watch Dawn Patrol (1938) with Errol Flynn. Its hard to believe that movies 60+ years earlier than this one could still be more accurate, AND expertly use footage from other movies. But I suppose the studio owned the earlier movies back then, as opposed to this movie that just stole them.

Aside from technology, acting was better back then too! Oh well, read the other reviews, they do a much better job then me. (p.s., I see that IMDb pointed out IMDb as a possible spelling mistake:)