Not surprisingly, "Barbarian" director Henry Crum's combat actioneer "The Hunt for Eagle One: Crack Point" is the sequel to "Rage and Discipline" director Brian Clyde's "The Hunt for Eagle One." A number of differences crop up between this follow-up film and its predecessor. First, U.S. Marine Lieutenant Daniels has been promoted to captain, while chopper pilot Captain Amy Jennings remains a captain. Second, Jeff Fahey as Daniels' superior Colonel Halloran replaces Rutgar Hauer as General Paul Lewis, but Fahey serves considerably more time on screen than Hauer managed to in "The Hunt for Eagle One." Rutgar Hauer does not appear in "The Hunt for Eagle One: Crack Point." Indeed, Hauer's name shows up in neither the opening cast list credits nor in the closing cast list credits. Moreover, Roger Corman and Cirio Santiago co-produced this sequel that suspiciously appears to have gone straight to video within several months of the release of the original.
This time around Captain Matt Daniels (Mark Dacascos of "Cradle 2 the Grave"), our indestructible, tight-lipped hero, substitutes an olive drab military do-rag for his steel helmet. Jennings disobeys Halloran's orders and joins Daniels and his crack team of troops as they search for a terrorist group that masqueraded as medical technicians in orange jump suits, entered Sultan Kudaram Airbase, home of the Joint U.S. Tactical Command, gunned down several base personnel, and pilfered a remote Ground Control Encoder unit. This portable device enables ground control to override manual control of the plane and put any aircraft on remote auto-pilot control, thereby dictating a new flight plan. The government created these encoders to thwart terrorists from crashing planes into skyscrapers, etc. Talk about a far-fetched but imaginative plot! Of course, the idea of a ground control unit that could fly jetliners independently of their own pilots and equipment is a novel but unrealistic concept. The obvious upshot as Michael Henry Carter's screenplay shows is the terrorists could gain possession of such a device and subvert the purpose for which it was designed. Essentially, as "The Hunt for Eagle One" amounted to a variation on "Black Hawk Down," "The Hunt for Eagle One: Crash Point" resembles "Die Hard 2: Die Harder." Once the hostile Middle Eastern antagonists led by Rashid (Dick Israel) have the remote Ground Control Encoder unit, they threaten to crash three civilian passenger planes already aloft. The Navy prefers to shoot down such aircraft rather than risk the aircraft being used as ordnance. Crum makes adequate use of obvious archival stock footage of aircraft-at-sea with jets launching off as well as landing on the aircraft carrier deck. This stock footage makes "The Hunt for Eagle One: Crash Point" look like an expensive epic. Meanwhile, the terrorists show that they aren't fooling around with the good guys. They crash the first jetliner onto the Kudaram Base runway and destroy all most of the aircraft and helicopters. Jennings barely escapes with her own life. She is seated in a fighter jet in preparation for take-off when the jetliner crashes and leaps out seconds before everything goes up in smoke. Not long after, the military learn that the devilish villains are located somewhere in a three-mile radius off base.
Daniels and his troops pile aboard a chopper piloted by Jennings. She convinces Halloran to let her fly them to the drop-off point because she is the only qualified pilot left alive on the base who can fly fast and low and get them in undetected. Afterward, against orders, Jennings goes 'vigilante' on Halloran, rappels from the chopper, and joins Daniels and his team, relinquishing the helicopter to her co-pilot. Daniels appears none too happy about her presence. Indeed, Jennings hinders more than she helps Daniels. The way that scenarist Michael Henry Carter has inserted Jennings into the action reeks of contrivance. Theresa Randle's lackluster performance adds little urgency to the situation; she behaves like a princess at the prom and holds her firearms as if they were corsages. Randle was okay in the first "Hunt for Eagle One" because she was the object of the mission. Here, in "Crash Point," she emerges as more of a nuisance. Jennings' addition to the ranks of Daniels' squad seriously weakens what vestige of credibility that the story had with its search and find plot. Our heroes cannot destroy the encoder because its destruction would condemn the remaining 700 lives onboard jetliners.
As it turns out, the villains are hiding in the most obvious place that the heroes overlook. Crum and Carter deserve a nod because they set this all up unobtrusively from the start. Eventually, after they discover where the villains have holed up, our heroes take a chopper into action and get shot down. They manage to land but they take heavy casualties. All the while, the last jetliner is still minutes away from crashing. Crum maintains some suspense with regard to the fate of the airliner. The villains here are wild-eyed, long-haired, and unshaven riff-raff with trigger-happy attitudes. Dacascos gets into a brief hand-to-hand fight scene and throws a bad guy out of a window.
"The Hunt for Eagle One" ends on a humorous note as Colonel Halloran orders Jennings and Daniels to report to the beach for a happy-hour round of drinks. Mel Lewis' music is particularly annoying with its recurring "Seinfeld" type guitar riffs. As Clyde did in "The Hunt for Eagle One," Crum stages the ubiquitous shoot-outs with an increased camera shutter speed so that everything appears to move faster. Everything is hand-held to give it an impromptu look and feel. Sadly, some of the personnel who developed character in the first "Eagle" are sidelined or shot down in this one. As a B-movie combat thriller, "The Hunt for Eagle One: Crash Point" is tolerable for one viewing only.
This time around Captain Matt Daniels (Mark Dacascos of "Cradle 2 the Grave"), our indestructible, tight-lipped hero, substitutes an olive drab military do-rag for his steel helmet. Jennings disobeys Halloran's orders and joins Daniels and his crack team of troops as they search for a terrorist group that masqueraded as medical technicians in orange jump suits, entered Sultan Kudaram Airbase, home of the Joint U.S. Tactical Command, gunned down several base personnel, and pilfered a remote Ground Control Encoder unit. This portable device enables ground control to override manual control of the plane and put any aircraft on remote auto-pilot control, thereby dictating a new flight plan. The government created these encoders to thwart terrorists from crashing planes into skyscrapers, etc. Talk about a far-fetched but imaginative plot! Of course, the idea of a ground control unit that could fly jetliners independently of their own pilots and equipment is a novel but unrealistic concept. The obvious upshot as Michael Henry Carter's screenplay shows is the terrorists could gain possession of such a device and subvert the purpose for which it was designed. Essentially, as "The Hunt for Eagle One" amounted to a variation on "Black Hawk Down," "The Hunt for Eagle One: Crash Point" resembles "Die Hard 2: Die Harder." Once the hostile Middle Eastern antagonists led by Rashid (Dick Israel) have the remote Ground Control Encoder unit, they threaten to crash three civilian passenger planes already aloft. The Navy prefers to shoot down such aircraft rather than risk the aircraft being used as ordnance. Crum makes adequate use of obvious archival stock footage of aircraft-at-sea with jets launching off as well as landing on the aircraft carrier deck. This stock footage makes "The Hunt for Eagle One: Crash Point" look like an expensive epic. Meanwhile, the terrorists show that they aren't fooling around with the good guys. They crash the first jetliner onto the Kudaram Base runway and destroy all most of the aircraft and helicopters. Jennings barely escapes with her own life. She is seated in a fighter jet in preparation for take-off when the jetliner crashes and leaps out seconds before everything goes up in smoke. Not long after, the military learn that the devilish villains are located somewhere in a three-mile radius off base.
Daniels and his troops pile aboard a chopper piloted by Jennings. She convinces Halloran to let her fly them to the drop-off point because she is the only qualified pilot left alive on the base who can fly fast and low and get them in undetected. Afterward, against orders, Jennings goes 'vigilante' on Halloran, rappels from the chopper, and joins Daniels and his team, relinquishing the helicopter to her co-pilot. Daniels appears none too happy about her presence. Indeed, Jennings hinders more than she helps Daniels. The way that scenarist Michael Henry Carter has inserted Jennings into the action reeks of contrivance. Theresa Randle's lackluster performance adds little urgency to the situation; she behaves like a princess at the prom and holds her firearms as if they were corsages. Randle was okay in the first "Hunt for Eagle One" because she was the object of the mission. Here, in "Crash Point," she emerges as more of a nuisance. Jennings' addition to the ranks of Daniels' squad seriously weakens what vestige of credibility that the story had with its search and find plot. Our heroes cannot destroy the encoder because its destruction would condemn the remaining 700 lives onboard jetliners.
As it turns out, the villains are hiding in the most obvious place that the heroes overlook. Crum and Carter deserve a nod because they set this all up unobtrusively from the start. Eventually, after they discover where the villains have holed up, our heroes take a chopper into action and get shot down. They manage to land but they take heavy casualties. All the while, the last jetliner is still minutes away from crashing. Crum maintains some suspense with regard to the fate of the airliner. The villains here are wild-eyed, long-haired, and unshaven riff-raff with trigger-happy attitudes. Dacascos gets into a brief hand-to-hand fight scene and throws a bad guy out of a window.
"The Hunt for Eagle One" ends on a humorous note as Colonel Halloran orders Jennings and Daniels to report to the beach for a happy-hour round of drinks. Mel Lewis' music is particularly annoying with its recurring "Seinfeld" type guitar riffs. As Clyde did in "The Hunt for Eagle One," Crum stages the ubiquitous shoot-outs with an increased camera shutter speed so that everything appears to move faster. Everything is hand-held to give it an impromptu look and feel. Sadly, some of the personnel who developed character in the first "Eagle" are sidelined or shot down in this one. As a B-movie combat thriller, "The Hunt for Eagle One: Crash Point" is tolerable for one viewing only.