This is a made for TV movie and due to budget restraints all the flight footage is reused from the Iron Eagle films. Hence Israel has to pass for Nevada. So I originally went into this not expecting too much but wanting an aerial film fix. Despite what one or two other reviewers have said, this has a very believable plot (especially compared to Iron Eagle films)and the acting was very good. The reviewer who thinks it's totally ridiculous to land a plane on a road and take off again needs to Google the Swiss and Swedish Air ForcesAn ace aggressor squadron pilot has some kind of breakdown and decides to shoot down his fellow pilots and attack Las Vegas with a Nuclear weapon. Spoiler ALERT+++++++++++++++++++++++++++ At first, this might seem a little ridiculous, but the way he achieves all this actually all seems very plausible. Far more so than the way the kids get everything Chappie asks for in Iron Eagle. He holds someone at gunpoint to get live weapons programmed, brushes off concerns by the armourer who loads the plane and then has to dismantle the nuclear weapon with the aid of a stolen wiring diagram,getting radiation sickness in the process (but as he's on a suicide mission, he doesn't care.) END OF SPOILER ++++++++++++++++++++++++++William O'Leary puts in a good performance as the cold, disturbed pilot,and Peter Strauss is pretty good as the older pilot and mentor who is eventually forced to take on his protégé. While the pace is a little slow in paces (especially if you are used to the moronic modern Whizzbang Hollywood rubbish),the plot isn't totally predictable and no-one does anything out of character. The Flight sequences are pretty well edited, especially considering that they are cut together from an entirely different film. This obviously lends itself to a few continuity errors but I think that's forgivable in this context. They are no worse than in bigger budget films like Top Gun. Overall, I found it a very enjoyable and well made film, and one I would certainly recommend, even to those who aren't that into planes. The complete opposite of a film like Flyboys.

the flight scenes look like they were filmed in Israel because they were. This movie borrows all of the action sequence footage from the movie "Iron Eagle"... which was shot using IAF F-16A/Bs and Kfirs (a Mirage III derivative). Pretty low-budget, I guess if I hadn't seen Iron Eagle so many times before, I wouldn't have paid attention to it. I rather rented the movie hoping to see more Tomcat footage (an F-14A is displayed quite prominently on the cover of the movie) but there is none. The acting is good enough, all things considered... even if the plot line is full of holes. This is the only time I've ever seen O'leary in a truly serious role... and he's wickedly good at it!

Is it possible these days to tell a story -- a taut, relentless, no-fat-no-frills story -- in contemporary Hollywood? This 1991 effort by writer/director Jonathan Mostow reminds me of Steven Spielberg's "Duel" in its relentless pursuit of a linear take-no-prisoners storyline. No real characters, but who needs 'em? Let Merchant/Ivory wander through sanguine tepidity ... Mostow wants to grab you, must compel your attention -- he plies his craft for the MTV 15-second-attention-span generation.I stumbled across this unknown gem flipping through cable stations one meandering Saturday afternoon, and immediately wondered why Hollywood hadn't discovered this amazing director. Then I searched IMDB and learned he recently finished directing "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines." Hmm ... guess he was only anonymous to me.The aerial dogfights are simply great. The maniacal plan of the wacked-out Crazy Christian Crusader main character is riveting, and Mostow's script seems plausible in its attention to military technology detail.Highly recommended.

Before he had the big budget of U-571, director Jonathan Mostow proved back in 1991 that he has what it takes to create a gripping movie. I rented this because I was writing a screenplay with a similar premise. The aerial combat sequences here are just as -- if not more so -- thrilling as anything in TOP GUN. I wish they would have got someone else to play Cpt. Gordon aka "Black Angel" -- still, the thesp gets across a spooky desperation. The script doesn't fully explain his motivation, but it's clear he has some kind of God-complex. Peter Strauss is also believable as the Mentor.If you like military or doomsday thrillers, this is worth a rent or watching on cable.Also of note: screenwriters John Brancato and Mike Ferris (THE NET, THE GAME) are billed as assoc. producers, though I don't know what their role in the production was.