Rough Air: Danger on Flight 534

I really liked this movie. It's a simple story with a airline full of passengers and something goes wrong. A trpical film about airline tragedies. Roberts and paul are good actors and show it. Like I said if you want a simple story about a airline tragedy just rent one of these films. They are all the same. It's out on DVd and a must for me because of the great Eric Roberts! Out of 4 stras I give it 3 stars.

So I'm scanning the Dollar DVD Rack one afternoon at Wal-Mart, wondering what offerings it might have for me...the title "Rough Air" jumps out at me. An obviously made-for-TV air disaster movie starring Eric Roberts (Julia's ne'er-do-well brother) and Alexandra Paul (of "Baywatch" fame, though to me she'll always be "The Virgin Connie Swail" from "Dragnet")? This DVD cover even has the audacity to rip off the tag line from "Alien," saying "At 30,000 Feet, No One Can Hear You Scream!" SOLD! A few nights later I give "Rough Air" a spin and y'know what? It's actually a decent (although totally unoriginal) flick, but I couldn't help noticing its similarity to the classic disaster-film parody "Airplane!" In fact, it almost seems as if "Rough Air's" screenwriters took the basic plot of "Airplane" and decided to make their own non-humorous version out of it. The two major characters are the disgraced pilot (Roberts) whose last flight ended in disaster, and his estranged stewardess girlfriend, both of whom end up on the same plane when mid-air disaster strikes and the pilots are incapacitated. Of course, Roberts is the only other person on board who can fly a plane, so it's up to him to get everyone back on the ground safely. When Stewardess Ex-Girlfriend is asked to help out in the co-pilot's seat, I immediately had flash backs to Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty landing the doomed airliner in "Airplane" while trading sight gags and one liners with Lloyd Bridges in the control tower, but they keep things on the straight and narrow in "Rough Air." (I kept waiting for them to inflate "OTTO" the automatic pilot, but no such luck.) Do you even have to ask if they'll fall back in love again by the time the plane lands? :) "Rough Air" was an entertaining enough diversion for a rainy evening. If air disaster movies are your thing, it's worth the dollar. For the casual viewer, you can do a lot worse.

it was good to watch but I must comment the nothing as of to date has compared to the 1970 " airport " movie.

Which I feel showed more realism about day to day operations of not only the airport but and air lines as well.

As " airport " used actual air traffic controllers and not actors in the tower.One big mistake I feel was made is when the plane touched down there was no sign of emergency equipment on the sight until after the plane had come to a complete stop. But we all know that when an aircraft is declaring an emergency that the emergency crews are in place at the runway prior to touch down.

After sitting through this movie, I know that I can sit through anything. In a few simple words, It was poor. I explain my reasons below as to why I believe this.

The movie uses a lot of cliches, which you tend to think to yourself 'oh no, not this again!' as you have seen in another air-disaster movie. It also fails to give you any surprises or really bad compromising positions, because you get 'warned' about them before they happen. Warned in inverted commas because it is not a direct in-your-face warning but more of a subtle one, so that if you are concentrating slightly, you will get what's about to happen.

There is obviously a romance, which I think could have been left out and we, the public, would not miss a thing. Another thing that struck me was how they all seemed to remain quite calm on the plane, even though terrible things keep happening!

More screaming and a more tense atmosphere were needed to make this movie ten times better. Definitely not a recommended movie, but more of a I-dont-know-what-to-do-this-Sunday-so-I'll-watch-a-movie !

This movie unrolls as if the producers had seen both the "Flying High" (aka "Airplane") movies and then immediately decided to make a serious movie based very heavily on what they saw.

A previous imdb critique of "Sphere" had Sharon Stone's delivery sounding like she was reading her lines as a hostage with a gun held to her head. In this movie, most of the actors deliver their lines like that; or maybe that they're seeing them for the first time ever on a teleprompter.

The good-guy copilot is cheerful and likeable, the bad-guy captain is arrogant and immediately dislikeable. The stewardesses smile brightly at each other as they chat. And on the first meeting of the featured passengers, straight away you could tell who would not live to see the end of the movie. See what I mean? It's altogether far too much like "FH".

The purpose of the savage dog in the cargo compartment escaped me completely.

The computer-generated images of the plane in flight are quite good, but they're not enough to rescue this movie. It was mildly entertaining, but no more than that.