Counter Measures

This has to be, out of all of the movies that I've seen, the one with the smallest target audience. That niche audience happens to be helicopter enthusiasts. The movie, which appears to be made for Australian television (judging by the accents and obviously missing commercial breaks), and also appears to have been cast largely with non-pros who seem to be real helicopter pilots. The film has only the barest of plots, with a classic arch-villain who's main crime, in this case, is deer poaching (the shots of dead bucks hanging from the bottom of helicopters in flight is neat in a psychotronic way) with some arson thrown in for good measure. The main point of the film is to showcase the capabilities of the beautifully designed 70's helicopters, and the action set-pieces, showing the helicopters rescue, fire-fighting, etc. skills, are impressively well made. Monte Markham, the sole American on the cast, did have, in my opinion, a fair amount of charisma and screen presence as the main good guy; he resembled nothing so much as a poor man's Steve McQueen. Altogether fairly good 1980's cheesy action fare, which, seeing as I'm the first to comment thus far, hasn't found an audience it deserves. Worth a look.