Iron Eagle

THE STORY: Having watched these movies in reverse...meaning I watched Iron Eagle II before I saw this one...raises a few interesting questions in my mind that I'll get to a little later. One thing I want to say is "Mr. Gossett, how could you?". Well, maybe I'm being too hard on Louis Gossett, Jr. I just think he's too good of an actor to be in these crappy movies.

Doug Masters is an Air Force brat. He and his friends have a club called the Eagles. They hang out and fly Cessna's. Well, Doug's pop, Colonel Masters is shot down over the Mediterranean, and captured by an enemy nation. An Arab enemy nation. Funny thing is this nation is never mentioned by name, and its leader isn't either, until the end when he says his name is something or other.

Back in the US there's nothing the government can do. Seems this enemy nation is pissed about embargoes and the like and they put on a show trial for Col. Masters. He's to be hung in 3 days. Well, I should tell you that before this happens we get to see that Doug, who is a recent high school grad, get turned down by the Air Force Academy and also races his teen nemesis, Knotcher in a race. Doug in his plane against Knother on a motorcycle. Yeah, its as stupid as it sounds. Actually, its more stupid than it probably sounds.

With the senior Masters imprisoned in a hostile nation and facing death, Doug gets the help of retired (but in the reserves now) Air force Colonel "Chappy" Sinclair. Doug's friends, other Air force brats, also help by gathering intelligence about the situation. This is really silly, as the kids manage to get what must be classified information from their fathers (No moms in the AF....kinda sexist.) by sneaking about their offices or tricking the parents to look the other way while they garner the goods. Yikes...its a wonder the AF didn't sue after this movie made their personnel look pretty stupid. This climaxes with Doug and Chappy steeling two F-16's and heading for the enemy country to free Col. Masters.

Hey, no one rented this movie without expecting to see dogfights! When Sinclair and Doug make it to the enemy they blow stuff up real good. Sinclair gets shot down and Doug continues alone. He lands (!!!!) his plane, frees his father and takes off again. But the leader of the enemy country follows in a mig. This guy is supposed to be an 'ace'. Doug shoots him down in short order and when the enemy fighters arrive, the US Air Force shows up in force and the enemy turns away, not wanting to face them. The agony isn't over yet.....you see, Sinclair survived and he and Doug face a military court. A court where they're told if they shut up about the incident no charges will be levied. also, Doug will be admitted into the Air Force Academy! (I guess I should point out that Doug is a civilian and would have to answer to CIVILIAN authorities.)

Wanna know what my big problem with this crap is? In the early 80's when it was made I saw it with some buddies. Now, these guys were all "pro-kick ass" in a way that makes me sick. Sick in a way of...well, if you were on the internet back when Saddam Hussein decided to give us the finger about the sanctions around 1995-96 and we proceeded to bomb him, you'll know what I mean. in various chatrooms you saw idiots, trolls and probably a lot of teens that would type in constant messages about "Just Nuke 'em!" or "Kill em!" etc. These are people that don't realize that war is a serious business. Its not a movie and its not a video game. People die...good people and yes, on both sides. People that take it so light-heartedly make me sick...because most of them aren't and wouldn't join the military to go "kill 'em all!" . Yet they're willing to let me and my friends march into the fire so they can feel good about themselves. Hey, I'll do it...I'm in the military and I'll go and I'll fight and I'll kill. But I don't think its a game. This movie only helped stoke the fires of my various and somewhat moronic friends back then. When I suggested how stupid the flick was and how its not that simple of a black and white line they of course, being drunk, told me I was wrong. Yeah. War is a game guys. You can steal a few F-16's and get a promotion. Whatever.

Well, Chappy Sinclair is played by Lou Gossett, Jr, as you probably know. Lou was Fiddler in Roots and he's been in a bunch of crappy movies since then he's also been in some good ones, too. Tim Thomerson was Colonel Masters. Wasn't he in Trancers? I haven't seen that yet.

Best Lines: "That was different...Mr. Peanut was in charge back then...now we got this guy in the Oval office who don't take no [unwrite] from no gimpy little countries! Why do you think they call him "Ronnie Ray-Gun".- Reg, one of Doug's friends. Reg tells him what happened when Carter was in office is different now because "Ronnie Ray-Gun" is willing to kick ass. I swear this movie must have been funded by the republican party. So I guess, Reg, what you're saying is the US doesn't respect any country unless they have a lot of missiles? Jerk....oh by the way, Reg was played by Larry B. Scott, who was also in Extreme Prejudice and Revenge of the Nerds. In RotN he was the gay nerd. I hope he's flipping burgers now.

1.) When Doug first goes to meet his buddies at the beginning he drives like a madman across the post. Excuse me, but did anyone making this film realize that if you drive like a crazy person on a military post they will stop you, not just yell at you. They will take your license. They can also make you and your family MOVE off post. Don't tell me its because Colonel Masters is a hotshot and they give Doug some leeway. The MP's (or SP's...this is an Air Force base) won't care. If my wife speeds through the post, I have to see the commander and tell him why my wife was acting like a crazy-person. I don't believe the Air force is that lax...and I know in the army they would definitely bust your ass.

2.) I find it stupid that they don't even try to peg a name on the enemy. why not just make up a country? They did it in the Sinbad movies and this is about as realistic.

3.) One of Doug's friends is the son of an Intelligence Officer. He gives Doug some info he says he got from hanging around while his father was in a meeting. Oooh, the bull[unwrite] is deep. For you civilians, let me clue you on something. That's preposterous! Look, MY WIFE can't even come in to my office WITH ME....just because I'm privy to secret info. It doesn't matter that I rarely come across anything secret, its just security. Did you know that I have routinely had to watch the guy that fills our soda machine because there is classified stuff in the building!? That's how tight security is on a military base. (Yeah, I have to watch this guy shove Pepsis in a machine in case he's a spy) Not to mention you have to have a pass just to get in the place. But we're to believe some 17 year old kid can just listen in on his daddy's intel reports? Right.

To make things even worse on the 'teenagers having access to military equipment and intelligence' we learn that Doug sneaks into the flight simulator aided by an Air Force NCO several times...and get this...that his father has let him fly in his F-16 with him. As Col. Masters says after one such flight "Do you know what they'll do to me if they find out?" Indeed.

4.) This movie shows respect for no one. Its mildly insulting to Arabs, but they also have Doug comment on Chappy's R&B music as if its something bad. That's amazing considering the horrible rock music that Doug plays. That's music that I think most rock fans will agree is incredibly lame. Speaking of said music, when Chappy sneaks Doug out to a test range Doug can't a single target. When he turns his tape of bad movie rock on he alluva sudden can shoot everything with fantastic accuracy! Does anyone else agree with me on how ridiculous that is?

5.) I was going to rant on the fact that Doug has his own airplane...but I won't because its probable. But I will rant on Chappy's reasoning for helping Doug. I don't remember much about this movie from seeing it in the 80's except that I thought it was stupid...but I thought the reason Chappy Sinclair risks his life, steals government property (F-16's!) and breaks a bunch of of international laws was that he had a long standing friendship with Colonel Masters. Naw. Apparently Masters stood up for him when a few Air Force personnel denied him access to the flight simulator. According to Chappy they told him to "get his black butt outta there"! Hold on there! First of all, Chappy is a freaking full bird colonel. Only a General is going to give him an order. I doubt that ANY colonel in any branch of the service would let someone talk that way to them....and discrimination and racial slurs are way out of line in the military....(I had a guy doing push ups and cleaning toilets for two weeks for using the N-word...and he wasn't even talking to me...I could have had his ass in a lot of trouble, but I figured a few weeks of extra duty would teach him...probably didn't but I got the satisfaction out of it) My point is, would you risk your life and steal a few fighters to save a guy you met once for a few minutes because he was nice to you? No one would! Especially an experienced military officer!

NUDITY AND SEX: None.

HUH? : Colonel Brazen's son has a plan to get some intelligence reports from his father. He tricks his pop's secretary, Hazel into leaving her office and gets his booty from her computer. *Ahem* Well, Hazel, an Air force NCO is waaaay too fat, even by Air Force standards. Secondly, computers with classified information usually require a password known only to the user. So in reality the most this kid would have got was a screen saying "Password is Invalid!". I'm not even going to go into how this kid wouldn't have been allowed in the place anyway...

When Doug blasts the enemy flight tower, there's about three seconds before the explosion when the enemy leader reacts. Now there's no way in hell that guy got out of the tower in time! Of course in Movie-land he does.

Doug lands his F-16, gets his father off the runway and takes off fast. I mean really fast. F*** taxiing down the runway, we here Col. Masters tell Doug to take off and zoom! Doug's heading straight up into the wild blue yonder! I didn't know F-16's could just take off without gaining speed on a runway. Must be one of those Harrier VTOL* F-16's....

THE TALLY: This movie is an affront to all that serve in any of the armed forces. Its basically an 80's "lets feel good about the US 'cuz we have a lot of bombs" movie. Now I don't mind patriotic movies, but this one isn't a patriotic movie...its a cinematic hand-job for the drooling masses of the 80's. Ugh. As bad as it is I don't think it deserves a tombstone, but a one devil rating is still generous.

*Vertical Take Off and Landing.