I took my username from this movie, so I guess I like it...
I like it more than I should, though. The Craig Thomas novel it's based on is tense and exciting, a cat-and-mouse game between Gant and the Soviet authorities both on the ground and in the air, but despite much of the dialogue being taken almost verbatim from the book the movie is sluggish and decidedly lacking in thrills. The first half of the film drags terribly, and Clint is a granite-faced cypher who displays none of the fear and tension felt by his character's literary counterpart.
The Firefox itself is an interesting design (to which the planes from Stealth bear more than a few similarities despite the 20+ years between the two films), but apart from a handful of shots the special effects looked dreadfully fake even back in the Eighties, never mind now. (The best special effects are ones that very few people will ever notice - *all* of the Soviet helicopters seen in the film are models.)
So why do I like it so much? Probably because it's one of very few true technothrillers to reach the screen. There are no romantic interludes or comic-relief sidekicks or any other distractions of the type so often forced in by studios - it's all about the mission. Get in, steal the plane, get out. The grim, monolithic, paranoid nature of the Soviet state also comes across well, giving the film a distinctive atmosphere. Gant enters a grey, joyless world where everybody is watching everyone else, the first flashes of colour coming - intentionally, I'm sure - when he finally steals the Firefox and soars away into the dawn sky.
One amusing note is that the film's most famous line - Baranovich's exhortation, in echoing flashback, that Gant must "Think in Russian!" was added after shooting - along with the previously unmentioned 'rearward missile' - because test audiences didn't understand what the Rearward Defence Pod was, despite it having been used earlier in the film and even described by one of the Russians!
I like it more than I should, though. The Craig Thomas novel it's based on is tense and exciting, a cat-and-mouse game between Gant and the Soviet authorities both on the ground and in the air, but despite much of the dialogue being taken almost verbatim from the book the movie is sluggish and decidedly lacking in thrills. The first half of the film drags terribly, and Clint is a granite-faced cypher who displays none of the fear and tension felt by his character's literary counterpart.
The Firefox itself is an interesting design (to which the planes from Stealth bear more than a few similarities despite the 20+ years between the two films), but apart from a handful of shots the special effects looked dreadfully fake even back in the Eighties, never mind now. (The best special effects are ones that very few people will ever notice - *all* of the Soviet helicopters seen in the film are models.)
So why do I like it so much? Probably because it's one of very few true technothrillers to reach the screen. There are no romantic interludes or comic-relief sidekicks or any other distractions of the type so often forced in by studios - it's all about the mission. Get in, steal the plane, get out. The grim, monolithic, paranoid nature of the Soviet state also comes across well, giving the film a distinctive atmosphere. Gant enters a grey, joyless world where everybody is watching everyone else, the first flashes of colour coming - intentionally, I'm sure - when he finally steals the Firefox and soars away into the dawn sky.
One amusing note is that the film's most famous line - Baranovich's exhortation, in echoing flashback, that Gant must "Think in Russian!" was added after shooting - along with the previously unmentioned 'rearward missile' - because test audiences didn't understand what the Rearward Defence Pod was, despite it having been used earlier in the film and even described by one of the Russians!