Air Marshal

If you like fake Hollywood cookie-cutter movies, this is the film to beat. Despite being overtly explicit with its support of racial profiling and portraying Muslim Arabs as terrorists and big hunky white guys as heroes, the plot line is overly-predictable and the characters shallow and annoying. The acting isn't bad, nothing too amateurish though. Certainly written in the post 9-11 heyday, continuing the Hollywood stance of marginalizing targeted branded minorities of the sorts done in Air Force One and True Lies. Also, the camera shakes throughout the movie, simulating the plane flying through air - gets annoying.

My first clue should have been when I saw the opening scene graphics....LYBIA!? Just where is that? You have so-called "special forces" teams that don't secure their terrorist captives, who run into a terrorist stronghold with no idea of how to get back out and who leave when the job's half done! I, as a former US Navy SEAL, am outraged. Whatever happened to the concept of "technical assistance" (and, for that matter, continuity). This movie gives new meaning to the term "disaster film". Where did scarface, the Mexican computer genius, come from. After 2 years his face still hadn't healed? I particularly liked the scene where the flight crew are engaging in banter in some country in "Eastern Europe"...right, one where the buildings have Greek lettering on them. And the plane, boss...the plane! According to electronic map, the transponder (which was turned off, I believe) showed that they were crossing Italy at a speed approaching 3500 mph. And while we're on that subject, it would have been nice to have a shot of a REAL plane in flight and REAL scenery instead of 57 minutes of MS Flight Simulator 2003 graphics. I hope Bill Gates got his money up front and didn't have to wait for box office receipts. I really think that the Director and Producer of this monumental tribute to video trash should be heavily fined and sent to bed without supper. Try as I might, I can find no connection between the opening scenes and the rest of the movie. Does the Writer or Director have ANY idea of the Chain of Command that flows downward from the President? Do they honestly think that a pre-pubescent, squeaky-voiced "suit" can order a military strike on a civilian target in a sovereign nation? WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? Please, stop them before they make another movie.

AIR MARSHAL is one of those movies that not only insults your intelligence, but it dares you to care. Not only does the screenplay play on 9/11, even having a character use the line "Let's roll", but I have not seen this much plot contrivances in a long, long time. Truly an awful movie, only saved (if you can call it that) by its audacity to be exploitative, stupid, and at the same time, convoluted up to a point where you just have to shake your head in dismay.

And would someone please tell B-movie filmmakers to stop using cheap-looking CGI models? If they can't afford actual props, shouldn't they steer their screenplays AWAY from films that requires them?

There are bad movies and then there are bad movies. AIR MARSHAL is just...bad.

2 out of 10

(go to www.nixflix.com for a more detailed review of this film)

Pretty lame excuse for a thriller. This is one of those films where you spot fake accents, spot continuity gaffes and watch bad acting and corny lines. Working like Bruckheimer with no money, Air Marshal struggles to do too much with too little. The real question is, why do low-budget filmmakers try to make huge action pictures that they can't possibly afford the effects and actors for? Why not make a talking heads movie with ideas and art involved? I guess that would be asking too much.

This will never open in theaters, so go to a video store and dig around in a few years, you'll find it there.

Others have already pointed to the stereotypes in connection with 9/11. I will focus on tech details of the aircraft. An American crew that operates a simulated (Russian) Tupolev 134 with a Bulgarian registration! They even had an elevator in the plane to make the audience believe this was a 747. The designer of the cockpit must have been either delirious or suffer from another major psychiatric disorder. That also goes for the special effects people. The airplane movements were totally unrealistic and probably the result of a doped flight simulator sequence. The film was aired by a commercial TV-station. It was enough to switch off after 10 minutes. It couldn't be more incredible.