Air America * (1990, Mel Gibson, Robert Downey Jr, Nancy Travis) – Classic Movie Review 10,625

Director Roger Spottiswoode’s 1990 film Air America stars Mel Gibson and Robert Downey Jr as maverick veteran pilot Gene Ryack (Gibson) and cheeky young upstart Billy Covington (Downey Jr), who work together as renegade aviators for Air America and become involved in the CIA’s drug smuggling operation during the Vietnam War, since the airline is a covert CIA operation. And then they are set up as the fall guys in a worldwide conspiracy.

Spottiswoode’s slick but mediocre action comedy leaves the well-paired, genial stars high and dry without a decent script, and, in trying to raise some laughs and thrills, they resort to mugging and swaggering about.

Spottiswoode ensures that there are a few well-handled action scenes, but something has gone wrong with the interestingly premised film’s tone, pace and coherence.

The pilots’ motto: ‘Anything, Anywhere. Anytime.’

The screenplay John Eskow and Richard Rush is a betrayal of Christopher Robbins’s excellent novel.

Also in the cast are Nancy Travis, Ken Jenkins, David Marshall Grant, Lane Smith, Art LaFleur, Ned Eisenberg, Marshall Bell, Bert Kwouk, David Bowe, and Tim Thomerson.

Made by Carolco Pictures and IndieProd Company Productions, it cost a fair bit, at $35,000,000, and grossed $31,053,601 in the US and $33,461,269 worldwide.

It runs 113 minutes.

It was shot in Thailand and at Santa Ventura Studios, California, and Pinewood Studios, Buckinghamshire, England.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,625

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