Air America

Roger Spottiswoode’s 1990 war film, “Air America,” is half glorious, half bad, but sadly not in equal amounts.

The movie is set in Laos in 1969 in a war that hasn’t really happened, at an airship that never existed. The protagonists are renegade pilots working for the CIA who love to fly the cargo they are asked to fly (rice, pigs, guns, cocaine) take their money and not ask a lot of questions.

Their employer (allegedly) is Air America, and they live by its motto, “Anything, Anywhere, Anytime.” The work they do is offensively dangerous, done under odd conditions, which looks like it’s what they like best. “The berserker the better.” Trouble junkies is how Gene, played by Mel Gibson, the group’s supposed leader, describes them. “We’ve been mainlining danger for so long, nothing else gets us off.”

Hal Hinson said in his review, “Working from a script by Richard Rush and John Eskow, Spottiswoode builds his community of head-case misfits on a Howard Hawksian model -- they're cooled-out, '60s updates of the daredevil pilots who flew headlong in raging storms in "Only Angels Have Wings."” Most of these guys are no good. For example, Billy, played by Robert Downy Jr., is a former traffic helicopter pilot for a Los Angeles radio station who did a low-flying stunt that took away his license. Hinson said, “Nobody told him that in joining up with Air America he was signing up for a private war, and being the new kid and still politically idealistic, the moral tightrope walking makes him uncomfortable.”

Gene, who’s been doing his own private scam for years, buying up guns for huge amounts, is more realistic. His politics aren’t based simply on suitability, but he accepts as part of the bargain that their company sells cocaine for General Lu Sung, played by Burt Kwouk, who wants to save up enough money to buy a Holiday Inn back in the states, in exchange for help from Laotian soldiers. “We’re not drug smugglers, “Gene says. “We’re pack mules.”

Hinson said, “Spottiswoode navigates these treacherous moral shoals without moralizing or stacking the deck. As he showed in "Under Fire," he understands the gray areas of international politics in the modern age, and where his movie excels is in its grasp of the absurdity that governs the life of the pilots and binds them together.”

However, a lot of times the movie dissolves into formulaic action nonsense. There are a lot of close shaves, too much crashing and burning. Hinson noted, “The scenes involving the visit of a Bible-thumping U.S. senator (Lane Smith) and the attempts by the American brass to keep him in the dark are tedious and unfunny, and it doesn't help that in playing the senator Lane seems to be mimicking his own astounding performance as Richard Nixon on television in "The Final Days."”

What lets anyone watch this movie is the funny banter between the two stars. Hinson noted, “As an unpredictable gambling wild man, Gibson seems to be mostly coasting, running variations on the characters he played in the "Lethal Weapon" films and "Bird on a Wire." Still, he's playing a kind of masculine ideal here (as Cary Grant did in the Hawks film) and there's grace and assurance in his laid-back style.” Gibson is perfectly matching with Downey, who’s crazier and more youthfully kinetic. This is a powerful young actor, which doesn’t matter of the material. It’s fun watching him think things through on screen. These two have spirit, and Spottiswoode gives them areas to interact. They give the movie its power.

This is a very entertaining movie about the Vietnam War. If you have not seen it, then definitely check it out, but if you don’t like it, I understand. People probably didn’t like how it must have been over exaggerated in areas, like the humor and the senator. People probably wanted more of a focus on the war, but I think it was all about the funny interactions between the characters. Watch it and give it a chance.

Now we have come to the conclusion of “Vietnam War Movie Month.” I hope everyone enjoyed this month, and hopefully I have made good recommendations. Stay tuned next month to see what I end this year off with. I’m really looking forward to it because it’s going to be a series of films that I really love. Stay tuned because I know I’m excited.