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When “Firefox” was suggested as a possible participant
in my dogfighting movies tournament, I had to consider watching it for the
first time since it came out thirty two years ago. I was only in my twenties when I first saw it
and although normally a movie fan tends to be more tolerant in their earlier
years of viewing, I clearly remembered being underwhelmed by the movie. Since I have started this blog, I have
sometimes found that I remembered movies too fondly, but I have rarely found
that my first impression of duds was wrong.
Whenever I have not seen a war movie for decades, it was for good
reason. In this case, it would seem
puzzling that I did not like it. I am a
big Clint Eastwood fan, I love air combat movies, and I enjoy James Bond. “Firefox” is a combination of all three - so
what’s not to like?
Clint plays Vietnam veteran fighter pilot Mitchell
Gant. He is suffering from PTSD (like
all other cinematic Vietnam vets in 1980s movies) and living isolated from
society in a mountain cabin (like all other cinematic Vietnam vets who are not committing
crimes in the cities). The Cold War is
going on and Gant must come out of retirement to save the free world from a
super weapon called the MiG-31 Firefox.
It can go Mach 6, is stealthy, and its armaments are thought controlled. It’s also a Transformer. (Well, in the remake it will be.) In the grand tradition of movies, since Gant
is a fighter pilot, he can thus fly any fighter plane. Even a unique enemy
plane that he has never seen the inside of.
In the grand tradition of the recent “Mission Impossible” movies, no spy
mission is impossible. All he has to do
is infiltrate the Soviet Union with cursory espionage training, avoid the KGB
which is on to him, sneak onto the super secure air base, replace the test
pilot, and escape with the plane. Piece
of cake!
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| I don't even speak Russian, but this disguise will get me onto the super secure base |
“Firefox” makes the most implausible James Bond movie
look like a documentary. This is
possibly the most ludicrous espionage movie ever made. But it is not camp ludicrous, it’s just
terrible ludicrous. I can’t think of
another Clint Eastwood movie that is more embarrassing than this one and to
make it worse, he directed it, too. He
does not even act well in it. His
attempt to portray PTSD symptoms is laughable.
This is not as readily noticeable since the rest of the cast is decidedly
second rate. In fact, a huge percent of
the budget went to special effects. This
was not money well spent because as I was watching the effects seemed cheesy. Apparently I was a fool because the
cinematography used a new technique called “reverse blue screen photography”
which I have been assured is awesome, not lame. Fooled me!
 |
| People are going to pay to see this crap and some are going to thing it's good! I love my job. |
Much
of the plot makes no sense and not in an overcomplicated Cold War tale sort of
way. It’s just moronic. By the way, the plot is actually based on the
defection of a Soviet fighter pilot to Japan in 1976. Clint would have been much better playing
disgruntled instead of shell-shocked. And maybe something could have happened that
could have happened. At least Eastwood
did not have the cheek to label the movie “based on a true story”. He would have been truthful if he had put in
a warning “based on a ridiculous screenplay”.
GRADE = F-
The plot device of a Vietnam veteran suffering from PTSD was already a cliche by 1982 (and "Gulf War vet with PTSD" is already a cliche now). I don't recall any logical explanation for why the CIA (or NATO or USAF or whoever) would recruit a retired Vietnam-era veteran instead of an active duty pilot who would be up to date on the latest aviation technology. Gant speaks Russian? So what? So do a lot of active duty officers and secret agents.
ReplyDeleteIt was very convenient that there were two prototypes, not just one, so that there could be an evenly-matched dogfight at the end. And the climax borrowed heavily from Star Wars, which, in turn, borrowed from 633 Squadron.
Agree on all of that. Thanks. Also thanks for not mentioning the other ridiculous aspects of the film. Your comments would be longer than the review.
DeleteEastwood's films often get a bit cheeseball, and his acting especially. But yeah, there's also a lot of bs as well in this film.
ReplyDeleteThe plan was to go South, presumably subsonic, to avoid radar. But allow a commercial plane to see them as a ruse, then head North. So any supersonic flight would only make sense in the south bound leg, and he could not go supersonic or use ANY radar once heading north... Instead he buzes the jet then flies low altitude mach 2 blowing fuel and giving the Russians the only method to detect him, and seems to use his radar throughout making his position easily track able.
Regarding the greenscreening. Of course it sucks for today but it's actually much better than most of it's era. With colour greenscreening you will often get miscoloured edges and The objects never sit well in the plane, the gamma is usually miles off. It was very god for the time.
The only major failure I saw was the scene where he gets out of a taxi and they superimposed him in front of a blurry blown up footage from red square, chosen to be recognisable and posit Austria as Moscow... But looked wholly crappy.
I'm a fan of Eastwood, but he has his limits...