Movie Review: Flight of Black Angel

Flight of Black Angel 

Starring: Peter Strauss, William O'Leary , James O'Sullivan, K Callan, Michele Pawk, Michael Keys Hall, Ben Rawnsley, Marcus Chong, Jerry Bossard, Patricia Sill,    Kim Robillard , James Henriksen, Ed Williams, Michael Gregory, Rodney Eastman, Clinton Archambault, Lee Ryan 

Director: Jonathan Mostow 

Trimark Pictures, Hess/Kallberg Productions, USA, 1991.

Lt. Col. Matthew Ryan (Peter Strauss) is a F-16 pilot training novice pilots. Capt. Eddie Gordon (William O'Leary) goes a bit too far scaring the novice pilot Bulldog (Jerry Bossard). Gordon has mental health problems and he snaps. Gordon goes on a murderous rampage and loads his Mirage III fighter plane with real armament and a nuke. Believing he is God's chosen one he shoots down his co-pilots and sets out to punish the sinners and destroy Las Vegas.

Lt. Col. Matthew Ryan

Capt. Eddie Gordon

Select armament type

First he must make a pit stop to rearm the nuke. He takes Valerie & Richard Dwyer (Michele Pawk and Michael Keys Hall) and their baby hostage. It is up to Lt. Col Ryan to mop up the mess that his subordinate has caused. 

Flight scenes are fast and exciting

James O'Sullivan as Col. Bill Douglas

Valerie & Richard Dwyer

Long before doing big budget movies such as U-571 and Terminator 3 Jonathan Mostow managed to direct this gripping thriller. William O'Leary is effective as calmly behaving psychopath. Peter Strauss is typical hero, okay in his role. There is action both on land and in the air. This made for TV-movie the movie probably uses a lot of stock footage for the flight scenes. However it does it good, so the flight action scenes look good. The movie has also couple of twists unconventional to these kind of movies.

Rating: Good