1982- the Cold War was at its first high in years with Ronald Reagan as President of the United States, not yielding or backing down from the Evil Galactic Soviet Empire that threw around its iron fist on the world's weakest thresholds. 1982 was also a year that began to bore pro-American and patriotic films such as "Uncommon Valor", "Missing in Action 1 & 2", "Red Dawn", and "Rambo", which seemed to all predicate the action-war genre of the early eighties box-office until the success of "Platoon".
The film had a good premise: retired American A.F. pilot Mitchell Gant (not the porn star, but Clint Eastwood) is recruited to steal a Soviet supersonic stealth fighter with a neural-controlled weapon system. Only he has to go into the country disguised and invisible in order to negotiate such a maneuver successfully. And Eastwood is burned-out and suffers from PTSD when enslaved by the NVA in the Vietnam War, so he has flashbacks due to it.
It's never established why Eastwood agrees to do this- did Uncle Sam bribe him, or was it for personal reasons of patriotism and nationalism? We are never sure. But oh well. When entering the Soviet Union, we see the oppressed, un-exaggerated totalitarian state it is (I went there a few years after this film came out, and trust me, it ain't a joke) for about an hour. While there, he is asked repeatedly for "his papers", so much that Clint goes bat-sh*t and kills one of the agents. Well, that's not really why, but still, you'd feel like it after being asked for the 18th time there in less than 24 hours. His accomplice played by Warren Clarke (looking much like a blond Oliver Reed) hooks him up with some dissident Jewish scientists who have engineered the MiG-31 and are helping him steal it or "give it a closer inspection" (I still love that line to this day). So when Eastwood is airborne, he is to fly north to the Arctic- refuel- and then land in either England or Alaska. But the other prototype of the MiG-31 (Firefox) is out to shoot him down.
When I first saw this, I was 10 years old and quite ahead of my time (while my friends were playing Pac-Man and watching "Solid Gold"). Had my dad not told me a gist of the plot, I would've been bored. And Eastwood does have a tendency to allow his scenes to drag (i.e.: "Million Dollar Baby", "Unforgiven", "Mystic River"). We didn't need all of the plotting of the evil galactic Soviet generals scene after scene after scene. I would given this movie a higher rating if that were trimmed a little. I'm not going to bash the F/X either: this was 1982- not 2002 where there's CGI coming off the screen. So back then, these effects were cutting-edge, and I still like to watch the final dogfight (even though it's campy to most). I would be more critical to it if they were to use an American plane with a red star emblazoned on it instead.
But the premise was always something THEY would do to US since we were pioneering military technology back in the Cold War. Still worth a watch.
The film had a good premise: retired American A.F. pilot Mitchell Gant (not the porn star, but Clint Eastwood) is recruited to steal a Soviet supersonic stealth fighter with a neural-controlled weapon system. Only he has to go into the country disguised and invisible in order to negotiate such a maneuver successfully. And Eastwood is burned-out and suffers from PTSD when enslaved by the NVA in the Vietnam War, so he has flashbacks due to it.
It's never established why Eastwood agrees to do this- did Uncle Sam bribe him, or was it for personal reasons of patriotism and nationalism? We are never sure. But oh well. When entering the Soviet Union, we see the oppressed, un-exaggerated totalitarian state it is (I went there a few years after this film came out, and trust me, it ain't a joke) for about an hour. While there, he is asked repeatedly for "his papers", so much that Clint goes bat-sh*t and kills one of the agents. Well, that's not really why, but still, you'd feel like it after being asked for the 18th time there in less than 24 hours. His accomplice played by Warren Clarke (looking much like a blond Oliver Reed) hooks him up with some dissident Jewish scientists who have engineered the MiG-31 and are helping him steal it or "give it a closer inspection" (I still love that line to this day). So when Eastwood is airborne, he is to fly north to the Arctic- refuel- and then land in either England or Alaska. But the other prototype of the MiG-31 (Firefox) is out to shoot him down.
When I first saw this, I was 10 years old and quite ahead of my time (while my friends were playing Pac-Man and watching "Solid Gold"). Had my dad not told me a gist of the plot, I would've been bored. And Eastwood does have a tendency to allow his scenes to drag (i.e.: "Million Dollar Baby", "Unforgiven", "Mystic River"). We didn't need all of the plotting of the evil galactic Soviet generals scene after scene after scene. I would given this movie a higher rating if that were trimmed a little. I'm not going to bash the F/X either: this was 1982- not 2002 where there's CGI coming off the screen. So back then, these effects were cutting-edge, and I still like to watch the final dogfight (even though it's campy to most). I would be more critical to it if they were to use an American plane with a red star emblazoned on it instead.
But the premise was always something THEY would do to US since we were pioneering military technology back in the Cold War. Still worth a watch.