It opens with shots of
miscellaneous military planes in the air. Then we go to Pokalsko Airbase in the
former USSR. A title card tells us it’s decommissioned. Suddenly a bunch of
folks parachute in and begin killing people, people who must have seen them
coming, people who had plenty of time to react. After all, it’s broad daylight.
But they seem very surprised at being killed. Perhaps they were expecting
friends to parachute in. Elsewhere, a woman is yelling into a man’s ear that
they must stop them. Stop whom? All she knows is that the alarm was triggered.
But she has no idea of the type of emergency. Unless, maybe she’s clairvoyant?
Well, the bad guys reach their
target, and that’s when their leader decides to stop and give a little speech
about their mission. Now? Mostly it’s to let us know what’s going on. But
seriously, shouldn’t they just get on with it? Well, the leader says they’re
going to steal a MIG-35 stealth bomber. And I wonder, Why are all the extras in
masks, but the actors are not? Either there’s a need for secrecy or there isn’t.
Hmmm. Did the leader just hand masks to people he didn’t want to hear speak on
this mission? “If I give you a mask, it
means shut up, no matter what.” Anyway, they steal the plane, and that
woman laments, “We will never see that
plane again.” Apparently, she has some sort of unnatural attachment to this
particular plane.
We then go to Hafar Al Batin
Oil Field in Saudi Arabia. Yes, this movie hits all the hot tourist spots. Hey,
here comes that stealth bomber. And though it’s nearly dark, the man on the ground
shields his eyes when looking up at it. Bombs away! Now it’s time to shield
your eyes, fellah. So the plan is to target a lot of oil fields, so that one
guy’s oil will be worth more. Oh no, the poor struggling oil industry is being
targeted! Geez, give those guys a break, you ruthless villains! “Your oil will be worth billions more,”
one villain says to another. I never thought an oil magnate could be so greedy.
You’d think the billions he was already making would be sufficient.
Meanwhile, the navy and the CIA
are bickering over jurisdiction regarding the case. The CIA suit threatens to
go up inside the navy guy’s ass, but before he can follow through on his
threat, some other guy interrupts. And the camera isn’t sure which character to
focus on. This guy, no, this guy, no, that guy. Hey, does this guy have a line?
Um, no, quick, back to that other guy. Hey, a wide shot would solve this issue.
Or you could shoot coverage, like every other movie ever made. No? Okay, the
master is all in close-ups, bouncing around like a nervous junkie. Who shoots
like this? I’m too caught up in this bizarre camera decision to be able to
follow any of the dialogue. A guy named Todd is given the opportunity to lead a
team to solve the problem, but there are more ass-related threats, and I’m fairly
certain this movie is going to end with an all-male military orgy. Poor Todd is
unhappy that Frank White is being brought in on his team. But seriously, would
you ever put someone named Todd in charge of anything? I wouldn’t.
I didn’t think it was possible
to make air combat dull, but a flashback to a training mission proves me wrong.
“Sometimes in air combat, you gotta be a
little crazy, Willis.” A little bit of crazy, a whole lot of dull. But with
more threats of driving a rocket into someone’s ass. I get it: the two
screenwriters are super, super gay. That’s fine, and if this movie doesn’t end
with a giant anal sex scene, I’m going to be upset. And how can you have a
character named Willis and not have someone else say, “What you talkin’ ‘bout, Willis?” Well, whatever, the boring
flashback is also a dream sequence. Ugh. Then, to spice up the exciting
man-riding-in-a-jeep sequence, we repeat part of the flashback. Oh god, this
movie has stopped cold, and we’re only twenty-six minutes into it.
Anyway, nothing whatsoever
happens for the following ten minutes. Then the team begins its mission, which
I guess is to find out who is destroying the oil fields. Frank White flies
around until he hears of an oil field being attacked, and then flies to that
oil field, but can’t go into restricted air space. That means more footage of
planes flying around. The guy with the stolen plane fires on Frank’s plane.
What about the oil field? They seem to have forgotten about that. Frank’s plane
is hit, he ejects, and then he talks to himself for a while. We follow him as
he walks along back to America, or wherever. So I guess the mission is on hold
again. You’d think there would be more than one plane on this case, what, with
billions in oil at stake. But no, it’s just this one guy. And so the movie is
now about Frank walking around. And guess what? That other pilot that was
shooting at him finds him. Geez, doesn’t this guy have other stuff to take care
of? Oil fields to blow up and so on? Nope. He gives Frank a little history
lesson, then tells him: “You, American,
you killed my country. You killed me.”
Then, when the villain’s female
accomplice hears Frank utter a feeble prayer, she suddenly becomes
compassionate and frees him. It’s completely unbelievable, but, hey, whatever
gets this movie to its conclusion, right? It leads to the villain saying, “What a day I am having.” Anyway, the
military comes in to rescue Frank, and there is a lot of shooting and running
and falling down, and a lot of shots of the villain speaking into a phone. It’s
all very thrilling, but what about the oil fields? And, oh boy, in the middle
of it all Frank starts making out with the Russian chick. Why not?
The oil guy is of course upset
with the Russian guy. But haven’t they already destroyed several oil fields?
Who knows? Only twenty minutes left in the movie. So anyway, all the military
guys get Frank out, only to then send him back in to attack the villain. It’s a
shame they didn’t think to do that earlier before they left. Now they have to
parachute back in and use up more film. So there’s more shooting and running
around and falling down. It couldn’t be more boring, and yet somehow someone
somewhere decided this movie deserved a sequel. Actually, three sequels. It’s
incredible. The villain sums up the entire film-watching experience near the
end: “Life is full of little
disappointments.” And then, guess what, when his plane crashes, it actually
manages to smash into and blow up another oil facility. Even in death, he’s
continuing to do his job. Good for him! But where the hell is the gay orgy we’ve
been promised?
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