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DVD Blue Thunder
"Suspense in a void" is how critic Pauline Kael described this action-packed hit from 1983. In other words, this is one of those flashy, superbly crafted high-tech thrillers in which the star is a machine, while intelligent plotting and human characters are a lesser priority. The machine in question is Blue Thunder--a heavily armored prototype helicopter that is secretly being tested for use in a devious government conspiracy. Roy Scheider plays the police pilot who catches on to the nefarious plot and takes to the skies against an evil army colonel (Malcolm McDowell) who will defend his coconspirators at any cost. Director John Badham was a hot property in the early '80s (he directed WarGames the same year), and Blue Thunder served as the popular model for many formulaic action thrillers to follow. That doesn't make it a great movie, but with a fine cast (including Daniel Stern in a memorable supporting role) and a dazzling aerial chase among big-city skyscrapers, Blue Thunder qualifies as slick entertainment. --Jeff Shannon
"Well Colonel, one of your missiles just took out a barbecue shack down in Little Tokyo."
There seems to be some differing opinions with regards to the picture presentation on this DVD release of the movie Blue Thunder (1983). I just bought the Region One DVD, and it only has the fullscreen format (1:33:1), and is a singled-sided disc. Perhaps some reviewers purchased the foreign market DVD release, which apparently has both the widescreen and fullscreen formats. Now I have heard rumors that Sony is planning a Special Edition release of this film in the future, but then again, I hear a lot of things, and only about half are true...co-written by Don Jakoby (The Philadelphia Experiment), Dan O'Bannon (Alien), and Dean Riesner (Das Boot), and directed by John Badham (Saturday Night Fever, WarGames), the film stars Roy Scheider (Jaws, Sorcerer), Warren `Quaker' Oates (Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Stripes), Daniel `no relation to Howard' Stern (Home Alone, City Slickers), and Candy Clark (American Graffiti, Amityville 3-D). Also appearing is Paul Roebling (The End of August), David Sheiner (The Gong Show Movie), Joe Santos ("The Rockford Files"), and perennial screen villain Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange, Time After Time).
Scheider plays Officer Frank Murphy, an ex-Vietnam helicopter pilot, prone to flashbacks, who now works for the Astro Division for the LAPD, assisting ground units from the sky to keep the mean streets of L.A. safe for us civilians. As the film begins, Murphy's saddled with a new partner, Officer Richard Lymangood (Stern), a goofus type, and the two proceed to show us the value of air support in law enforcement as they assist in catching a few violent punks, when they're not peeping at a nekkid contortionist. During their watch, a local politician, a mayoral appointee to the commission on urban violence, is assaulted. The attack is written off as a random act of violence, but Murphy's not convinced. After Murphy and his partner are grounded for some aerial shenanigans, their flight status is re-instated so they may participate in a gooberment program testing a prototype helicopter, one which features plenty of after-market modifications like thick armor, a forward mounted 20-millimeter electric cannon capable of firing 4,000 rounds per minute (hoo-ya), infrared night/heat vision capabilities, sophisticated eavesdropping equipment, turbine booster, whisper mode operation, and more. Turns out an old war acquaintance of Murphy's is also involved in the program, that of Colonel Cochrane (McDowell), and the two don't get along (Cochrane's played up as an uppity a-hole). During a test flight, Murphy and Lymangood accidentally on purpose catch wind of the true nature of the project (if it's tied to the gooberment, you know it must be evil), and the link to the now deceased politician, using the state-of-the-art surveillance equipment on the Blue Thunder, and have now become liabilities as those parties responsible will do whatever it takes to keep their plans secret, including murder...
The story might be predictable and even thin in a few places, but I thought the film, overall, was a lot of fun, and the pacing pretty tight. One thing the movie features a lot of are spectacular aerial shots of helicopters in action, highlighted by some excellent musical scoring, which made me long for the widescreen format to really experience the full on excitement of these sequences. The actual helicopter did look a bit awkward, especially when compared to the much slicker, shinier one featured in the "Airwolf" television series, released a year later, but it was still pretty cool. As far as the characters, they seemed secondary to the whirly bird, but then that's usually the case in movies or television shows like this featuring a high tech whizzbang (how many people watched "Knight Rider" for David Hasselhoff's stellar performances?)...I thought Scheider, along with most of the others, did well enough, the real standout for me being Oates, as Captain Jack Braddock, Murphy's gruff, no nonsense superior. I've always dug on the Oates, and he fit his role here perfectly. It's a character I've seen countless times in other films, that of the supervisor stuck between a maverick type subordinate and his uptight, establishment superiors, complete with scene involving Oates' character stating how his behind has been chewed off for his subordinate's antics, but Oates seems to pull it off better than most. And then there's Stern's character of Lymangood...seemed his only point in the film was to provide a plot device, which he did, before his departure. As far as McDowell, he plays the villain role well, due to the fact he's played it so many times, but he seemed just a bit too smarmy here for my tastes. A toned down, less obvious characterization would have come across a little better, in my opinion. I did like the aspect of the story that involved the initially unintentional use of the Blue Thunder against those who sanctioned the program, the irony of using the sophisticated machine against those who developed it, in terms of exposing their surreptitious (and evil) plans, but I thought it odd the gooberment, fully understanding the capabilities of the aircraft, not having some sort of built in safeguard in case it should fall into the wrong hands. How hard would it have been to install a secretive, remote detonation device within the machine? Not very, but then we probably wouldn't have had much of a film. I suppose I could go on and on being all nit picky and such, but, as I said before, I really liked this film, but I thought it was relatively well put together, despite the preponderance of clichés. This is more or less an action film, and works the way it's supposed to...the best scenes are loaded up on the back end of the film, as Murphy, hunted by the authorities (after the gooberment spooks purposely attribute some of their underhanded activities to a now renegade Murphy), steals Blue Thunder and has to face off against two F-16 fighter jets. Seems like an uneven match, but keep in mind, a helicopter is a lot more versatile in a cityscape environment than jet aircraft, and Murphy, being the experienced pilot he is, uses this to his advantage.
As I mentioned earlier, my DVD is single-sided, and features only the fullscreen format, which looked decent but could have been better (I did notice a little dust on the print in a few scenes, but overall, the picture was relatively clean). The Dolby Digital 2.0 audio came through well enough. Extra features for this release are sparse, including an original theatrical trailer and some material on the DVD case insert in terms of comments from the crew about the film. A solid four stars for the film, and two and a half for the lacking release.
Cookieman108
High Tech, Fast Action Paranoia And With First-Rate Performances
Among the stars of this first-rate high tech action thriller is Blue Thunder, a helicopter that, as one character says, can fire 4,000 rounds a minute and peer down blouses at 1,000 feet. At first glance, Blue Thunder is a marvel; it has night vision capability, whisper action engines, high sensitivity mikes, automatic firepower linked to the movements of the pilot's helmet and sophisticated targeting systems. It's heavily armored and heavily armed. When Officer Frank Murphy (Roy Scheider) a chopper pilot with the Los Angeles police who has bad memories of Viet Nam, is chosen to test out the helicopter, he and his partner, Richard Lymangood (Daniel Stern), find themselves up to their eyes in a secret government conspiracy where people are going to die.
Murphy has nightmares about Viet Nam, has trouble with authority, sticks his neck out, feels he has to test himself. His boss, Jack Braddock (Warren Oates), respects him but gets tired of dealing with Murphy's edginess. For one incident, Braddock takes him off flight status. "But there's a bright side to this, and a moral," Braddock tells Murphy. "I think morals are good things. I love morals. And the moral of this story is, if you're walking on eggs, don't hop." On night patrol in their regular police helicopter, Murphy and Lymangood come across an attack on a woman as she enters her condominium complex. They call it it, police quickly arrive, and in the shootout the woman is seriously wounded. The attack is labeled a suspected rape attempt, but Murphy isn't so sure. Why were there two assailants? Why was her briefcase the object of a theft? What happened to the abandoned car Lymangood had spotted nearby just moments before? The woman turns out to be Diane McNeely, a member of the Los Angeles Mayor's task force on urban violence. Murphy discovers she possessed written information that government agencies were stirring up violence in some of the poorest parts of Los Angeles.
Then the Feds show up with Blue Thunder. The experimental chopper with its high tech gear and armaments is designed to identify potential trouble makers and terrorists, to suppress them and to eliminate any unrest they may cause. Los Angeles, it seems, might be just the candidate for tests to prove more of these choppers will do the job. The helicopter is effective in tests, but not perfectly surgical in it's firepower. "One civilian dead for every ten terrorists. That's an acceptable ratio," says one official. "Not if you're the civilian," says Murphy. One of the people behind Blue Thunder is Col. F. E. Cochrane (Malcolm McDowell), an old acquaintance of Murphy's from Viet Nam. Cochrane was an ace pilot, too, who often tossed Viet Nam prisoners out of his chopper. One night in a check-out flight of Blue Thunder, Murphy and Lymangood come across a secret meeting of Cochrane and some Fed officials. Using Blue Thunder's surveillance capabilities, Murphy gets the meeting's discussion recorded on tape. The discussion proves a government conspiracy by a handful of officials to foment insurrection in order to justify Blue Star's use by the government, and to countenance murder, all for the greater good. Just as the meeting closes, Cochrane pulls open the drapes to look outside...and sees Blue Thunder hovering nearby. Murphy and Lymangood are discovered, and a brutal chase begins. The last third of the movie is a race...by the bad guys to get the tape, by Murphy and his girlfriend to get the tape to the news media, to get the Air Force to destroy Blue Thunder and Murphy, and finally to get Blue Thunder and Murphy destroyed in a head-to-head chopper duel between Murphy and Cochrane.
I like this movie a lot. It's a taut, high-paranoia action film where the paranoia is justified. All the actors do fine jobs. Scheider is authoritative and troubled. McDowell is thoroughly unlikable but always watchable. Stern makes Lymangood a goofy, good-natured guy who doesn't deserve what happens to him. Candy Clark as Murphy's girl friend is a sweet, slightly off-centered delight who is brave and determined when she needs to be. Warren Oates plays Murphy's boss in great style. And the city of Los Angeles comes off well, too. The action sequences take us in a fast tour the city from a bird's eye view, from over downtown, past and around sky scrapers, low and fast over freeways and down to the concrete-encased Los Angeles River.
The movie may be 20 years old, but I think it holds up well. The DVD comes wide-screen on one side and edited to full-screen on the other. Watch the wide-screen version. The chopper sequences, particularly the fights, require it. The picture looks fine to me, although it isn't a knock-out transfer. There are no significant extras.
Blue Thunder Bowl ...
An iron-plated Huey gunship with duel-mounted .50 caliber machine guns threatens to destroy the world. Only Roy Sheider can save the day by hanging off a flagpole on the side of a building and firing a rifle at Blue Thunder's gas tank, causing the shark to explode and then Sheriff Brody has to swim back to shore with a guy who has been "counting money all [his] life". Something like that. Blue Thunder had slightly less appeal than the hit tv series "Airwolf" (starring critically acclaimed alcoholic wife-beater, Jan Michael Vincent). As the film moves toward the end, you will look back and realize that the woman getting naked in the first 15 minutes of the movie was the best part ... and you will want to rewind it and watch that part again. If Popeye, Iron Eagle, and Red Dawn are in your movie collection, you may as well round it off and purchase Blue Thunder as well.
You can tell Clint Eastwood is getting old by all of the "retired" characters he plays who are pressed back into service, as in this early '80s effort. It's one of Eastwood's lesser action entries, in which he served as both star and director. He plays a retired fighter pilot who is enlisted by the U.S. government to infiltrate the Soviet Union (back in the days when it was still an Evil Empire) and steal an ultra-top-secret fighter plane with all kinds of superior capabilities (back when the Stealth bomber was still a struggling prototype). Sure, no problem. Except that it takes forever to actually get Clint into the plane--and once he's got it, he keeps interrupting the fighter-plane sequences (the best thing about the movie) to land the thing and have fistfights and gunfights.... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Clint Eastwood - Freddie Jones Director(s): Clint Eastwood DVD Release Date: Released the 01 October 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Hip spy shows with covert agencies within agencies--like Alias and 24--are missing only one thing: A super-duper armor-plated helicopter with "nuclear-tipped shrike missiles." In the action series Airwolf, a mysterious national security agency called the Firm constructs a "Mach-one-plus chopper that can kick butt," only to have it stolen by the nefarious scientist who designed it (David Hemmings, Blowup, Barbarella). Desperate, the Firm turns to Stringfellow Hawke (Jan Michael Vincent), a soulful, cello-playing, art-loving, eagle-watching, guilt-ridden master pilot. Hawke refuses to help unless the Firm searches for his brother, who went MIA in 'Nam. Of course, he succeeds in his mission, but until the Firm fulfills its side of the bargain, he keeps the... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Leslie H. Martinson - Sutton Roley - Gerald Mayer - Don Medford - Bruce Seth Green DVD Release Date: Released the 24 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Time has been kind to Flight of the Intruder, a rousing aviation-action adventure that looks better now than it did to critics who panned it in 1991. Perhaps they were expecting a Tom Clancy-ish blockbuster (producer Mace Neufeld oversaw the Jack Ryan franchise), but director John (Conan the Barbarian) Milius had something potentially more substantial in mind. The first 75 minutes are pure Milius: Macho bluster, male bonding among ill-fated pilots and Naval bombardiers, and a Big Wednesday-like passion for dangerous fun. But Milius's favorite topics have sharper teeth here: He's made a scathing anti-Vietnam film that still honors the bravery of soldiers who do their job even when the job itself seems pointless. That's why ace Brad Johnson (why didn't he become a huge... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Danny Glover - Willem Dafoe Director(s): John Milius DVD Release Date: Released the 01 July 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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With a tantalizing "what-if?" scenario and a respectable cast of Hollywood veterans, The Final Countdown plays like a grand-scale episode of The Twilight Zone. It's really no more than that, and time-travel movies have grown far more sophisticated since this popular 1980 release, but there's still some life remaining in the movie's basic premise: What if a modern-era Navy aircraft carrier--in this case the real-life nuclear-powered U.S.S. Nimitz--was caught in an anomalous storm and thrust 40 years backwards in time to the eve of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor? Will the ship's commander (Kirk Douglas) interfere with history? Will the visiting systems analyst (Martin Sheen) convince him not to? Will a rescued senator from 1941 (Charles Durning) play an unexpected role... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Kirk Douglas - Martin Sheen - Katharine Ross Director(s): Don Taylor DVD Release Date: Released the 30 March 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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