AIR AMERICA
A film review by Jim Griffith
Copyright 1990 Jim Griffith
The first comment I have to make about this movie is that the trailers for it and the television advertisements are grossly misleading. The most visible example is the fact that many of the trailer's scenes are not even in the movie. For instance, the trailer shows Gibson and Downey walking together, having the following conversation:
Gibson: Anything anywhere any time. That's our motto. Well, it
would be.
Downey: If we actually existed.
Gibson: Yeah.
Downey: Which we don't.
In the movie, all that happens is Gibson says "Anything anywhere any time. That's our motto." Another example is that the trailers and ads show Gibson calmly chomping on a sandwich while his plane goes up in a ball of fire. This "scene" is actually a collection of clips from two separate scenes, taken completely out of context.
Granted, this is a nit. But in general, the trailers and ads make this movie out to be a fun-loving comedy. It is not. The movie has some pretty dark tones to it, and parts of it will depress the hell out of you. Don't go to this movie if you are simply looking for fun -- you will be largely disappointed. I was really offended by the extent to which the ads portrayed this movie as something it isn't.
Don't get me wrong. Parts of this movie are very funny. But the movie's subject deals with a rather embarrassing aspect of American history -- the fact that the CIA was maintaining a covert distribution system of virtually any imaginable commodity (including body parts, according to Gibson on "Arsenio Hall"), and that this system ran a fair amount of drugs, all in the name of national security. And it would not have done the subject justice if they had played it as a comedy.
The movie starts with a young California chopper pilot losing his license essentially due to stunt flying a radio station's traffic chopper. He is promptly recruited by the CIA to fly for "Air America," the CIA's distribution network in Laos. Once in Laos, he finds himself in the midst of a number of pilots who are bordering on insanity. He even remarks on how strange it is for him to find himself as the most normal person in the room. The movie goes on to describe various incidents involving different deliveries and what happens on the way. Incidental to the plot is a US senator on a fact-finding mission, and the attempts to placate him while keeping him in the dark.
The problem that I had with the movie was that it was unwilling to commit to any particular plot twist. There are a number of opportunities for the story to take on a potentially challenging approach, but it consistently heads in one direction, only to veer off right away. A potential romance is set up between Downey's character and an idealistic USAID worker, but nothing ever comes of it. A dramatic confrontation between one of the "heavies" and Downey's character is in the making, but again, nothing happens. The movie has no climax per se. Rather, it sets up a number of minor climactic moments, with no real surprise endings to any of them. Essentially, other than to say, "Hey, look what the US government was up to!" this movie doesn't say or do anything remarkable. The only other plot aspect that interested or surprised me was the senator's final stand.
What is most interesting about the movie is the characterization of the pilots involved. Downey is a rather idealistic rebel who is trapped in a situation where he must deal with unpleasantness in order to do what he loves to do. Gibson is a man who sees any moralizing about his situation to be a futile exercise. He is solely interested in becoming independent enough to do his own thing. The pilots in general are aware of the roles that they are playing, and they are fatalistic in their view of their roles. They spend their time alternately dealing with a bureaucracy which is looking for scapegoats and unfriendlies who are looking to kill Americans, and they walk the line between sanity and insanity in an effort to cope with it. All that has value to them is each other, and they are fiercely protective of each other.
My gut reaction to this movie is "So what?" It has no message, it doesn't know how to take itself, which means that the audience doesn't either. Gibson gets to put more into a character than he's been able to do in the past. Downey is playing a familiar role, but one which is still sympathetic. If you're going to go see this movie, go for the characters, not the plot, and certainly not for the humor.
Jim Jim Griffith /--OO--\ griffith@dweeb.fx.com
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