Well, you know... Rutger Hauer and Robert Patrick both are really good actors. But WTF with this movie? The story was lame and the script was just terrible. The poor actors didn't have material to work with!The DVD cover invited you to a flight action flick. You would expect something like Top Gun... Huge disappointment! The flight action in this movie is so cheap that makes you puke. The aerial scenes are clearly taken from documentaries and some other footage sources, not made for this movie. And they didn't even care about the marks or the fighters models, taking for granted the audience will not notice it.As I said the story was lame. With a little effort from the writer and director it could have been very interesting. In short, it seems a B-movie made in the 70's.I feel very sorry for these actors who put their names here. They sure must be ashamed.

Ahh yes, this is one of those films. You know the one. You're red-eyed and bleary with fatigue, but you just can't sleep. The dogs of insomnia outside your door. You flip the TV on at about 3am....this is the kind of movie you get.The person who noted that Rutger Hauer looked pretty beefy for a POW is dead-on. Maybe they tied him down for those six years at a Chinese buffet or something. He's a hell of a guy though. He is an Air Force pilot, but he also has ninja skills riding on a truck and messing up missile programming, killing armed guards, and surviving tank explosions. There was also some pretty sad security on that military base. A fence a 12 year old could clime is all that stands between tanks that you can just jump in and ride. There are no guards there either? Robert Patrick goes into that munitions storage and comes out with an RPG which seems to magically reload itself. Hauer's tank also got off three shots....I thought a tank had to be reloaded after firing a shot? Hmm...The dialogue in the last ten minutes was gold. Hauer has killed Patrick's squad...and is heading towards the base to kill his wife...who of course is on the exact floor he blasts his machine guns into. Patrick says something like: "You S.O.B., you're no pilot!" Well, Hauer's character is an S.O.B, and he is also crazy, but he is a pilot and all. That's how this whole thing started.After Hauer's plane crashed into the water at the end, I expected him to spring out of the water, ala Jason in the first Friday The 13th, as Patrick walked with his wife and newborn child.

... Said the continuity announcer as TACTICAL ASSAULT was about to be broadcast . After seeing the first two minutes I started thinking Rutger might want to get a new agent . After seeing the next ten minutes I started thinking Rutger might want to retire thereby saving a potential audience from any more of his performances Yup this is a truly terrible movie . I wasn't expecting much and why should I if the name Rutget Hauer appeared in the credits , but within seconds of the opening title credits that featured NATO warplanes with USSR markings bombing Bosnia I realised I was going to be force fed inedible turkey three months after Christmas .The attention to detail is non existent . NATO planes carry USSR markings then were told Hauer's character spent six years in an Iraqi prison which would make the setting 1997 . What NATO were bombing the Serbs in 1997 ! I guess the producers didn't think the audience would have noticed this ridiculous inaccuracy but I know I did . The producers also probably hoped the audience wouldn't notice the lack of continuity such as dogfights with Iraqi jets that suddenly turned from Migs to F-4 Phantoms then back again but I did . Even stranger characters would take off in F-16s then when they arrive back at base there jet has changed into a Soviet built Mig Oh and if you're expecting a dumb action movie you're only half right because it's dumb but most of the plot centres around a BASIC INSTINCT revenge plot . I'll give the producers some credit ( Maybe credit is too strong a word ) because after seeing plots featuring nannies from hell , policemen from hell , flat mates from hell we now have a fighter pilot from hell which means every single occupation of the 20th century has featured in a from hell type plot with perhaps TATICAL ASSUALT being the worst movie of the lot

It's as if the Stay-Puffed Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters had been reincarnated in Rutger Hauer's body and is taking revenge upon a rival's pregnant wife! If seeing an obese Hauer chase a very pregnant Isabel Glaser (imagine the spine-tingling thrills in that contest) sounds good to you, see this film! Seriously, if Hauer is what an Iraqi POW looks like after six years in prison, then hungry people everywhere should make a bee line to a jail in Baghdad. Overall "Tactical Assault" rates 2 stars instead of 1 because Mike Mitchell as Hawk is terrific. Mitchell burns up the screen as a NATO pilot until his plane is burned up itself (by an enemy missle), whereupon the film loses what little verve it had to begin with.