Iron Eagle was one of my favorite films as I grew up in the '80s. It had everything: terrific aerial sequences involving F-16 fighters, great '80s pop rock music, cheesy acting, annoying kids and a hero who did something amazing.
The hero is a a bit of a rebel kid who hangs in a gang of pilot kids with Air Force dads and are trying to get into the Air Force academy. After the hero's dad is shot down over enemy territory and taken hostage, the kid convinces a veteran pilot, played by Louis Gosset Jr., to come along and help rescue him.
In order to do this, they get the annoying kids in the gang to arrange for two fully-fuelled F-16 fighter jets, all the arms they can carry and refuelling tankers enroute to be made available to them. Through a series of implausible and silly scenarios, the kids pull it off (how they do it made the USAF distance itself from the film production).
The hero takes to the skies and shows how one single F-16 can destroy a country's economy, wreak havoc and pickup a hostage before getting out of there, while the teenage pilot listens to pop rock music as he flies.
There's so many errors in this film and one of the things I noticed is that in the Cessna and motorbike racing scene the airplane has its flaps down when it is trying to beat the motorbike. What kind of dumb pilot would try to attain maximum speed with his flaps down?
It's a shame because the aerial stunts performed by a top flyer in the Cessna are probably the highlight of the film. (A small trivial point is that the pilot of the Cessna was later killed while flying a camera ship for Top Gun.)
With all its faults, it doesn't matter, it was made for kids I suppose, but it does have multiple instances of s**t and one f**k in the dialog.
A lemon compared to the near-perfect Top Gun.
Ooooo
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