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Flight Of The Intruder
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Lions Gate Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Ethan Stevenson (17th May 2010). |
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The Film
 John Milius isn’t a household name, but he really ought to be. In the 1970's and early 1980's Milius was at the top of his game. His uncredited rewrite and draft of Don Siegel’s “Dirty Harry” (1971), in which he largely reshaped Eastwood’s Inspector Callahan into the character we know today, also included the character's “Do ya feel lucky…” monologue, one of the most iconic lines in film. A few years later he returned to pen “Magnum Force” (1973), considered by many to be the best film in the Dirty Harry series (it is fun, but personally I’m more partial to the original and the Eastwood directed “Sudden Impact” (1983), which I consider the best of the franchise’s sequels). Then in 1979, he would co-write the pinnacle of his career, “Apocalypse Now” (1979), with director Francis Ford Coppola, again unleashing one of the most well known lines of dialogue ever conceived of on film, with that film’s “Napalm” speech. In the 1980's Milius turned more towards directing his own features and here too he’d be winning. While his two highlight features from the era are not high concept, award-winning masterpieces, both, in my mind are genre staples and films that any child of the 80's holds dear to their heart. I’m of course talking about “Conan The Barbarian” (1981) and “Red Dawn” (1984), both of which are solid, very watchable B-movies that are perfect Sunday afternoon fodder. But, by the early 90's Milius would hit a plateau and his time as a director would end – abruptly – with the ill conceived, poorly reviewed and sometimes just plain terrible “Flight of The Intruder” (1991). Sure, the man would continue producing solid work for a few years, writing a string of films, most notably “Clear and Present Danger” (1994), but by the end of the decade the once successful, respected filmmaker had all but vanished from view. “Flight of the Intruder”, a film based on a much better novel of the same name by Stephen Coonts, is the reason why. Set amidst the unpopular Vietnam War, in the early 1970's, “Flight of the Intruder” opens with an effective, provocative sequence in which an A-6 Intruder bomber pilot, Lt. Jake “Cool Hand” Grafton (then new comer Brad Johnson, who was supposed to be launched into leading-man superstardom with this feature) and his bombardier/navigator “Morg” (Christopher Rich) are almost shot down my anti-aircraft fire while on a routine night mission. “Cool Hand” manages to keep the plane in the air, and although the Intruder is damaged, land safely on the deck of their carrier. His navigator and good friend isn’t so lucky – Morg is dead before they touch down, his blood and guts having filled the cabin. Horrified, depressed and pissed off all at once, Jake becomes a reckless mess, disobeying superiors, getting into fights while on weekend pass, and putting other pilots at risk, all of which makes Cmdr. Frank Camprelli (Danny Glover) very angry. Or if were to surmise from Glover’s acting – at very least, that he’s just too old to give a shit. When loose cannon Lt. Cmdr Virgil Cole (Willem Dafoe), a man on his fourth tour of duty, is brought in to replace Morg, Jake convinces the jaded, possibly insane Cole to fly with him to bomb Hanoi City as payback for not just his friend but all of the boys that have died in this needless battle. You’re probably thinking, “well, that really doesn’t sound too bad” – a little cliché perhaps, but not terrible or career damaging.” And honestly, if you thought that, you’d be right… sort of, at least on the topic of terribleness. Had “Flight of the Intruder” played it straight, beginning and ending with Jake’s quest for “justice”, culminating in the bombing of Hanoi and the aftermath of those actions, “Intruder” would be an odd, but hardly awful film on the Vietnam War. I say this because; there are things to praise in this film. For one, Milius gives viewers some absolutely excellent aerial sequences – better than anything else of the era, besting even, in many cases the footage in “Top Gun” (1986). And as I said, had the film simply focused on Jake’s anger, dissention and poor judgment that all leads to a possible court-martial, perhaps the film would be notable for putting a revenge-flick twist on a difficult subject, and for posing questions of morality and righteousness. As it is though, the relatively minor positive aspects of the script – the small moments of decent story that could have given some higher level of meaning and depth to the main characters – are but a mere fifty or so minutes in the grand scheme of things. Instead, the film is nearly ruined by the forced insertion of a listless love story between Grafton and a widower named Callie (a miscast Rosanna Arquette), his subsequent wooing of her, and there seemingly instantaneous falling in love (seriously, these events occur so quickly that, either I missed something, like someone turning a frozen donkey wheel and Jake suddenly jumping through time, or both characters have some sort of unspoken deadly illness that is going to kill them in a week, so they need to move their relationship along quickly, that, or the script is just bad (hint: it’s number three)). But, for all the harm that subplot does to the film as a whole, nothing comes close to the destructive powers of “Intruders” illogical, frankly idiotic third act. Skip down past the next two paragraphs if you don’t want spoilers. After Jake gives an impassioned speech about the futility of the war that they are fighting during his court-martial, he’s verbally reprimanded, but is told by his superiors that he must wait as they deliberate, and decide on his punishment. He and Cole discuss how there aren’t really sorry for disobeying orders and bombing military sites in Hanoi. Then they quickly find out that they have been cleared of all charges. Simple as that; the reason being that Nixon has enacted a new “bomb everything” policy and charging two soldiers for doing just exactly that, would create some bad press. Personally, I think the film should have ended there. It’s actually a perfect bookend to the overall tone of the more disenchanted versions of Grafton and Cole – truly, it would have driven home the whole “futility” thing the main character basically soliloquized to the audience seconds ago. But, sadly, no, that isn’t the end. The remaining half hour is one of the poorest third acts I’ve ever seen. Seriously. It’s just not logical; in it characters suddenly have different personalities, motivations and relationships with each other. And, really, it’s just beyond stupid. It’s as if someone didn’t even bother to actually write an end for “Flight of the Intruder” and instead, Milius just went ahead and used a checklist, marking off every war movie cliché he could work into the plot. As part of Nixon’s new “kill everything that isn’t American” policy, Camprelli leads a squadron of A-6’s on a midday bombing run. Now that the big planes don’t have the cover of darkness to protect them, everyone, including Camprelli, is shot down and or killed. Injured, but not dead, and smack-dab in the middle of a few dozen Vietcong, the commander calls for reinforcements. Cole and Jake back on the aircraft carrier, having been grounded by the none-to-happy Camprelli, who disapproved of their non-punishment, respond and in another logic defying moment of unaddressed time travel, arrive in a matter of seconds to save the commander, only to be shot down too. Now, on the ground we have fighter and bomber pilots in a firefight, using pistols and knives. Why? The film needs more action; apparently, because god knows the numerous bombing sequences where they could be shot out of the sky at any moment weren’t enough. Without any explanation, Grafton and his commanding officer are now best buds, taking down Charlie, like a 70's era Butch and Sundance – only they don’t die at the end. Cole goes out in a blaze of glory though, spitting blood and chewing dialogue, while groaning out warnings to the encroaching VC, whom he takes out with ease, by blowing himself up. It’s all very dull, operatic, and unneeded. It’s like something out of another movie – no it’s like 15 movies crammed into one. The whole thing is so unbelievably cliché and unoriginal, that these thirty or so minutes completely derail the film into pointless territory. No spoilers beyond this point. Sure, “Flight of the Intruder” may be worth a watch once. But outside of a mediocre, deeply flawed narrative, a few surprising appearances from the likes of David Schwimmer, Ving Rhames, Tom Sizemore and "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" (1999-Present) Captain Cragen (Dann Florek) from before they were “stars”, and the knowledge that this film simultaneously killed three careers (John Milius never again directed a theatrical feature, Brad Johnson never made it to the A-list, and Basil Poledouris was nearly blacklisted after he turned down the offer to score “Dances with Wolves” (1990) in favor of collaborating with his long-time director friend on “Intruder”) there’s little reason to add this to your collection. Frankly here are better movies about the Vietnam War already out in high definition that you can pass the time with if you must, and they look better on blu-ray too… oh, wait, you were supposed to read on to find that out – without further ado…
Video
To blunt “Flight of the Intruder” looks borderline terrible – sorry, but I don’t know of any other way to say that. The opening credits are soft and dirty, but that’s to be expected, so I waved the imperfections of the first minutes away without a care. After all, things were bound to improve – the film is only 19 years old, it couldn’t look that bad… right? Well, no. The 1080p 24/fps AVC MPEG-4 encoded, 2.35:1-framed high definition image looks every one of those years, and then some. Worse yet, the Blu-ray looks like it even reuses the original (problematic) DVD-era master from 2003, which Paramount minted years ago for down conversion to standard definition, never intending for this to be the seen in high definition. Grain is a frequent problem – not only is it exceedingly thick (that in itself is a non-issue in my book; film has grain and is welcomed almost always) but it’s often so poorly digitized, looking chunky, blocky and obscuring detail, that it does become an issue. In most cases the grain comes off as noise, not film grain and is frozen in place in certain scenes. Contrast wavers and the image appears flat, lacking depth almost always. Sometimes the picture presents the kind of lush black level one wishes to see, but also just as often, fails to do so – either coming across too dark with severe crushing, or too light, with more of a milky appearance. Softness creeps into many shots; colors are largely subdued (although intentionally so, from what I can gather – especially on the carrier). Specks and dirt are scattered throughout the entire film, as though the print has never seen proper care (it probably hasn’t). Detail improves over the DVD but that doesn’t exactly earn it any points – it’s a Blu-ray; by default, it should blow the standard definition rendering out of water (or sky in this case). Look, I never expected a third rate catalog title to look excellent or even decent – especially one shot using the then relatively untested Super-35 process, some 20 years ago. Even with a fresh restoration, many early Super-35 productions will represent relatively lackluster images – it goes with the territory, and the time. But, “Flight of the Intruder” looks particularly aged, rough and genuinely poor. I do expect that a distributor use a relatively recent video master (one that’s less than 5 years old), and that a film is given some care and polish in transfer to Blu-ray; after all, what’s the point of releasing a film in high definition if you’re only going to port over a print intended for DVD? Lionsgate has done absolutely nothing to the source or video master – they’ve used the exact same one as the DVD, with absolutely no work put into it. As a result, the sort of post-processing techniques usually seen in masters from the “DVD-era” (particularly Paramount titles of the time) rear their ugly, unwanted heads at sporadic intervals, with both DNR and minor edge haloing featured prominently throughout many sequences. So, to recap: the transfer is grainy, noisy, dull looking and has instances of debris and damage-related artifacts, despite a liberal use of noise reduction in some scenes, and is, soft, spotty and inconsistent, despite noticeable over-sharpening in others. The transfer has an overly digital quality – not a film like one – and, although it improves upon the DVD considerably, is at best mediocre. Sound terrible? It almost is.
Audio
The English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track mixed at 48kHz/24-bit on “Flight of the Intruder” is a somewhat impressive, but also rather flawed mix. The aerial sequences, including jet take offs, have few problems – definitely the meat and potatoes of the film, aurally speaking. Hearty and full bodied, surround use and dynamics are more in tune with the film of this type in these moments. And hissing, distortion, and other defects are a non-issue. However, just as many non-action scenes (about 1/3 of the film) sport spotty, muffled dialogue, thin texturing and little power. For every strong scene there is a dull one – for every clear and concise exchange of dialogue, there’s one that is garbled and difficult to discern. Problems start early – as Glover’s character addresses his pilots, he sounds echo-y, hollow and muffled. Perhaps this is a side effect of the sound design – to mimic his mic, but even if that’s true, it doesn’t matter, because the effect is done so poorly that it is not only difficult to dissect dialogue, due to a copious amount of reverb and a compressed atmosphere, but also because of an awful thinness, and it just flat sounds bad. (On the other hand, this same scene has some of the roughest video as well, so perhaps it’s related to the source?) Other examples abound – many other scenes of important dialogue are problematic, with a similar hollow brittleness. And volume levels are off sometimes too, with action-effects, dialog and music all mismatched – at times the jets are so loud that you can barely hear Basil Poledouris’ score, and dialogue gets lost in the shuffle of the hustle and bustle of carrier life, even in important scenes. Subtitles are included in English, English for the hard of hearing and Spanish.
Extras
No extras, aside from a promo bonus trailer for "Lionsgate Blu-ray" (HD, 1 minute 1 second) and a bookmark feature (which is becoming increasingly superfluous now that Panasonic’s Blu-ray authoring kit includes a standard Java-based auto-bookmark feature). Seriously, they couldn’t even find the theatrical trailer to stick on here? Lame.
Overall
Meh. If I had to sum up “Flight of the Intruder” on Blu-ray in one word that would most definitely be it. A dirty, problematic source print is given an equally problematic transfer, and an inconsistent audio track, and zero extras make this bland, awkward dialogue on The Vietnam War hard to recommend to even the most hardcore of fans. If you must add John Milius’ “Flight of the Intruder” to your collection, wait for this one to make it to the bargain bin – it’s sure to be there in a few short months anyway.
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