Tactical Assault

... Said the continuity announcer as TACTICAL ASSAULT was about to be broadcast . After seeing the first two minutes I started thinking Rutger might want to get a new agent . After seeing the next ten minutes I started thinking Rutger might want to retire thereby saving a potential audience from any more of his performances

Yup this is a truly terrible movie . I wasn't expecting much and why should I if the name Rutget Hauer appeared in the credits , but within seconds of the opening title credits that featured NATO warplanes with USSR markings bombing Bosnia I realised I was going to be force fed inedible turkey three months after Christmas .

The attention to detail is non existent . NATO planes carry USSR markings then were told Hauer's character spent six years in an Iraqi prison which would make the setting 1997 . What NATO were bombing the Serbs in 1997 ! I guess the producers didn't think the audience would have noticed this ridiculous inaccuracy but I know I did . The producers also probably hoped the audience wouldn't notice the lack of continuity such as dogfights with Iraqi jets that suddenly turned from Migs to F-4 Phantoms then back again but I did . Even stranger characters would take off in F-16s then when they arrive back at base there jet has changed into a Soviet built Mig

Oh and if you're expecting a dumb action movie you're only half right because it's dumb but most of the plot centres around a BASIC INSTINCT revenge plot . I'll give the producers some credit ( Maybe credit is too strong a word ) because after seeing plots featuring nannies from hell , policemen from hell , flat mates from hell we now have a fighter pilot from hell which means every single occupation of the 20th century has featured in a from hell type plot with perhaps TATICAL ASSUALT being the worst movie of the lot

This movie caught my attention when I read that both Rutger Hauer (Blade Runner, The Hitcher) and Robert Patrick (Terminator 2) were both in it, so me being a fool for low budget movies I decided to watch it.

Hauer plays deranged Captain John 'Doc' Holiday whose got a grudge with father-to-be Colonel Lee Banning, played by Robert Patrick. Captain Holiday wants revenge because of an incident back in the early 90's when Banning stopped Holiday from "having some fun" when attempting to blow up a civilian aircraft which had flown into dangerous air space...sounds a bit silly doesn't it?

Hauer's character in this movie reminded me a lot of John Ryder, the character Hauer portrayed in The Hitcher. Hauer portrays Captain Holiday with the same evil, sarcastic and resentful attitude as he did with John Ryder. While Robert Patrick gets to play the good guy...for once.

Overall, not a bad movie...felt like fellow fighter movies such as TopGun and Iron Eagle at times. Hauer still deserves better than these low-grade movies.

5/10

My Caddy Limo was destroyed!!! Well, I had one just like it - Drove the hoi polloi and many of the Chosen Ones around Manhattan for a few years.

That was a whole lot more entertaining than this movie I can tell you. Lordy, what a bomb - as in RPG go boom. I also drove a lot more stars in my white Caddy than appeared in this dud of a flick.

Robert Patrick is a very serious actor and did a credible job with the nonsense he had to work with. Unfortunately, Rutger Hauer played his part like a red-nosed circus clown. If he couldn't take it serious why should his audience? The director should have kicked his butt off the set in the first hour of filming.

The dialog was written by 10 yr old's for 8 yrs old's. Surprised there wasn't a whole lot more cracking up on the sets. Oh well, I am a movie fanatic - ergo - you must take the bad to get to the good.

The movie contains a plethora of action scenes, explosion, blast, aircraft battles with various jet-planes flying to sound-velocity . USA captain John 'Doc' Holiday (Rutger Hauer) was fired during the Gulf War , he loses it under pressure after a fatal incident with a civil airliner over an Iraqi 'no fly zone' , as he nearly shoots down an unarmed passengers airplane . Pilot Banning is forced to shoot down Doc's jet instead save the situation. Unsettling Air Force pilot Holiday looks for destroy the life of his former commandant , who shot him down during the Gulf War to stop him from shooting on unauthorized civilian targets. In Bosnian front commanded by a General ( Ken Howard ), the squad leader is Colonel Lee Banning (Robert Patrick) , he gets him to be reactivated for the service depending on further therapy led by a Doctor (Dey Young) . Deranged Holiday however doesn't see things that way , he feels Lee decommissioned his career, as Doc decides to get avenge on Lee and will stop at noting for vendetta , neither sabotage nor target Banning's pregnant spouse (Isabel Glasser).

This is an average action movie with suspense, thrills, dogfighting with spectacular flight scenes and some commercial elements. The story provides entertainment and action with no sense but sometimes is a little bit boring and dull . Mediocre-budget extended adventures produced about a maverick pilot and his deranged partner undergoing risked feats on air and earth . A standard actioner packed with aerial action , intrigue , and spectacular dogfighting . Robert Patrick shows professionalism as happily married crack fighter pilot , assigned to chase the rebel pilot and ex-partner . Full of jingoist ideals, dubious ethics and violent vengeance . Regular action film in what's really a revenge psycho-thriller . Filmed in Budapest (Hungary) and desert of Mojave (USA) . The film moves like a supersonic bullet for most of its running time and the last generation Jets steal the show. Contrived beyond belief with spectacular dogfights that play like video games, but slickly calculated to please 2000s audiences. The movie follows the wake of ¨Top Gun¨, ¨Iron Eagle I¨ and sequels. The motion picture is regularly directed by Mark Griffits who in the 80s directed films as ¨Hardbodies I, II , Ultraviolet , or Running hot¨ , while in the 90 and 2000 only directs TV movies. Rating : Below average , 4 .

Several years after he was presumed dead after an "incident" in the Iraqi no-fly zone after the first Gulf War, Captain John "Doc" Holiday shows up, eager to pick up life where he left off. Former flying partner and friend Colonel Banning helps him get his old job back and the two are in action again over Bosnia as part of a NATO operation. However, even though the report of the incident looks clean, Holiday blames Banning for the years that he lost and seems not all together right in the old head there. As minor peculiarities turn into out and out barking behaviour, Banning starts to worry.

Fifteen minutes into this film and I had yet to hate this film as much as everyone else seems to have done; I had managed to ignore the made-up history and enjoy the scenes of jets flying and men going "alpha roger, I'm taking fire" etc etc. However at this point the film shifted slightly to Banning's wife and the back-story where Holiday starts to semi-stalk the family. With this the film joined the heap loads of films that already exist within this similar "man/woman appears normal but gets obsessively crazy" genre (trips off the tongue doesn't it) and it doesn't even match the low standard of the majority of them.

Let me just deal with the whole setting – that of military action in Bosnia in the mid-nineties; now I'm no expert but the whole thing was not only horribly simplistic (Americans were the good guys in the conflict and those on the ground were "bad") but it is also plain wrong. I won't linger on this too long though because facts are not the point of this film and, to be honest, if you're coming to a Rutger Hauer film expecting a history lesson then you deserve all you get. Ironically the rubbish history provides the only pieces of vague entertainment as the usual stock footage of planes and explosions and the actors inside planes against blue screens at least provides some distracting motion even if it never is exciting or involving (and potentially annoying if you pay too much attention to the identity-swapping planes). Meanwhile the usual stalker stuff plods around on the ground until, finding itself with no dramatic drive at all it simply ends with a ludicrous set piece involving tanks that have the keys left in them and a dogfight high above Bosnia. It is poor throughout and only made more annoying by just how obvious and predictable it all is.

The cast act as a clue as to how average this is going to be, given that it features two men who really don't do anything to deserve bigger projects that this. Hauer is obvious from the start to the end and never makes for an interesting character. In his defence, Patrick at least comes across as a sort of real person but even he can find little of value to use in his performance. Glasser is the damsel in distress and does nothing but that. The support cast are all average, with nothing to do but spit out the required lines in the basic required fashion.

Overall this is a very poor film that tries to milk two genres but does neither of them well at all. The Top Gun action is distracting but full of stock footage and historical stupidities; meanwhile the stalker stuff on the ground is plodding, dull and tiresomely predictable. Don't make the same mistake as me – just avoid this.