TERMINAL VELOCITY
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1994 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Charlie Sheen, Nastassja Kinski, James Gandolfini, Christopher McDonald. Screenplay: David Twohy. Director: Deran Sarafian.
Most of the time, I see a new movie on its opening weekend, and it's not just so that my reviews can be fairly fresh. It is also an attempt to avoid, to the extent that it is possible, pre-conceptions based on other reviews. Such was not the case with TERMINAL VELOCITY, which had the chance to accumulate a mountain of negative response in the two weeks between its opening and my screening. It's difficult to preduct how those pre-conceptions will affect my own reaction. In this case, they allowed me to be pleasantly surprised. TERMINAL VELOCITY is frenetic and uneven, but it has a certain bone-headed charm thanks to Charlie Sheen's improbably dense hero.
Sheen plays Richard "Ditch" Brody, a skydiving instructor with something of a reckless streak. It is that reckless streak which is blamed when a young woman named Chris (Nastassja Kinski) plunges to her death while Ditch is giving her a lesson. The threat of a manslaughter charge inspires Ditch to do a little investigating of his own, during which he discovers that for a corpse, Chris appears remarkably lively. He also discovers that she is a former KGB agent, trying to prevent other former KGB agents from financing a coup in Russia. Somewhat against his will, Ditch becomes Chris' partner in a battle to prevent a new Cold War.
The plot of TERMINAL VELOCITY is not exactly what you would call inspired; it's basically classic Hitchcock crossed with classic James Bond. The plot's few twists and turns are spelled out in huge letters from the outset, and a bit clumsy in the execution. Equally distracting is a tone which careens from brutal to near slapstick in moments, making for a schizophrenic experience which isn't as purely enjoyable as it might be. Director Deran Sarafian drives the action forward relentlessly, which is usually an ideal choice for a film of this genre, but often seems merely hyperactive here. TERMINAL VELOCITY sometimes feels like a cockroach race -- moving fast, but in no particular direction.
Its saving graces are the characterizations and interaction of Charlie Sheen and Nastassja Kinski. Sheen's Ditch Brody is just a handful of brain celss removed from his goofball HOT SHOTS! persona, but it's a character that comes off as extremely refreshing in an action thriller. Rather than being either inordinately brilliant or dumber than virtually everyone in the audience, Ditch is just simple. He is quite entertaining in scenes where he is infuriated by Kinski's references to his dim-wittedness, but he maintains a kind of affable puppy-dog eagerness to please. In one scene, he opens a cylinder which is supposed to contain valuable information. When what he finds (a CD rom disk) isn't what he expects to find, he taps the cylinder on the desk to make sure there's nothing else inside. It's a simple gesture, but funny because it's clear this is no rocket scientist we're dealing with. Kinski is also quite good as the tough, edgy agent. She is clearly smarter than Ditch, and it's a credit to screenwriter David Twohy (THE FUGITIVE) that he lets her maintain the upper hand; even when Ditch has to rescue her late in the film, it never seems as though she's merely the "woman in distress."
That rescue, a wildly inventive stunt, is certainly TERMINAL VELOCITY's highlight. Plunging through the air in a convertible Cadillac, Ditch has to fight off villain Christopher McDonald, free Kinski from the car's trunk and release his parachute before hitting the ground. It's a gag worthy of the best Bond films, and it sends TERMINAL VELOCITY off on a note of high energy. But it's not an isolated moment. TERMINAL VELOCITY is full of well-staged action sequences, and Twohy's dialogue is rich with fine one-liners. Though it sometimes seems a bit too busy and scattershot for its own good, it's still a perfectly enjoyable no-brainer worth a few solid laughs.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 parachutes: 6.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews