Rating: Summary: This is the absolute best movie of all time Review: Firefox is the most influential film I have ever seen. The acting is wonderful, a sub-cult classic. Who could not say that the airplane is the most beautiful plane ever not built?
Rating: Summary: firefox Review: Great movie,hope to soon be released in dvd.
Rating: Summary: nothing like Russia Review: Here's the word from a real Russian national and former officer of the Russian army: I gave this movie three stars only because it made me laugh at times.The story is wrong, as wrong as is "the hunt for the Red October" or similar pieces of the Cold War propaganda. The hatred of the KGB among the citizens is overblown far beyond proportions even for a fantasy movie. Behavior and attitude of the people might look familiar to those who have never dealt with the Russian military, look familiar from watching other similar propaganda flicks, but they look totally unfamiliar to me who spent years there. American actors sound totally knockdown pathetic whey they try to speak Russian. I could hear a little bit of genuine Russian speech on the background, but the speakers were not actors for sure: their lexicon, their intonations were not appropriate for the scene played. The movie bosses spend millions on stars, but why spare few hundred for a couple true Russian actors to deliver quality stage speech? Probably because it does not make difference for the majority of their intended audience who does not care about reality that much after splitting a sixpack in two.
Rating: Summary: Well-paced, COLD WAR thriller... Review: I beg to differ with reviewers who found FIREFOX too slow and too low in the action category. With the exception of Freddie Jones hamming it up a bit as a British intelligence officer, the cast and plot of this outrageous "steal the Russkies' stealth bomber" adventure works precisely because the deliberate pacing of the film allows the suspension-of-disbelief necessary to accept the premise of such a comic book exploit. The Firefox (not quite the star of the show)is a mach-6 wonder weapon that remarkably resembles the US Air Force's now decomissioned SR-71 Blackbird. Director Eastwood builds credible suspense by firmly controlling the character of pilot Mitchell Gant(played by Eastwood)never allowing him to devolve into the slyly glib machismo of THE MAN WITH NO NAME or the snarling .44 magnum histrionics of "outlaw" lawman, DIRTY HARRY. That is, not only is Gant (predictably)reluctant to accept such a mission impossible. But understated acting by Eastwood convincingly conveys fear, bewilderment and admiring astonishment at the heroism of "ordinary" Soviet citizens who risk everything to defy the KGB police state by helping him. No, this is not Eastwood copying John Le Carre, but neither is he a Roger Moore/007 clone trying to pull a Moonraker heist in reverse. The scenes where Gant is smuggled into Russia are suspenseful. The scenes where the Communist Party Chairman, the Soviet Air Defense Marshall and the bully-bad KGB apparatchiks verbally duke it out to disclaim responsibility for the impending disasterous blow to national security provide an interesting confirmation to the myth of bureaucratic buck-passing which may be satirical but not quite amusing considering its implications in the age of nuclear armaments. Again, this is not a John Keegan study of a cold-war crisis. It is a movie, however, that matches well with the cinematic political/sci-fi efforts of both Forsyth and Clancey. For viewers who demand action, the aerial piracy/espionage and combat sequences concluding the movie...produced by special effects pro, John Dykstra...deliver a climax that should satisfy anyone who gives FIREFOX a fair-shake and watches it for the reason Eastwood probably made it: to be a good, entertaining "ride"...
Rating: Summary: nice bit part for Ken Colley Review: I don't give a rap for Clint Eastwood, who is his usual wooden self in this boy's toys shoot-em-up. The actor I like is Kenneth Colley, and he walks away with all his scenes as a KGB man who almost catches the Yank. Colley is a really fine actor.
Rating: Summary: A major botch, but.... Review: I loved "Firefox" the novel and the sequels which return the great charachter of Mitchell Gant. Unfortunately, Gant's charachter (and Thomas' writing) doesn't transfer well to film. In "Firefox" Gant has been plucked by the CIA out of retirment after suffering physical and emotional scarring in Vietnam. (Readers from the novel will remember that Gant had been plucked out earlier to fly captured Russian warplanes in mock combat, but the film streamlines the details). When the Russian Air Force develops a super-advanced fighter plane that is a) invisible to radar; b) capable of mach-5+ speeds; c) armed with a thougt-controlled fire-control system and d) way ahead of anything available in the west, the CIA and British SIS collude on a foolhardy and almost plan to send Gant into Russia to steal it. With the help of Jewish dissidents and the virtually imprisoned scientists working on the plane, Gant breaks into the Russians' high-security test site in a mad rush to steal the plane. Like the novel, the film is split into two parts - getting to the Firefox and then getting it to the west. The second half - dominated by pre-CGI special effects - seems pretty weak, although knowing how cartoonish CGI can be, I've learned to appreciate it. The first half - in which Gant steals his way through the nightmare of the police-state of Russia - is very slow, and probably of little interest if you didn't read the book. "Firefox" (both book and film) excel though because they don't try to follow your typical technothriller routine - steely eyed heroes and all. When confronted by a bullying KGB agent in a subway, and informed that his papers aren't in order, Gant kills the man. For your stock secret agent, this would be a moment of pluck and quick thinking, but for Gant, it's a moment of outrageous stupidity: the KGB man was reaching, not for his gun (or a wallet) but for his cigarettes. ("Ofcourse your papers aren't in order!", Gant is roundly drubbed by his Russian co-conspirator, "nobody's papers are in order, this is Moscow!!"). Every aspect of the plan goes awry, although that was clearly in the minds of the planners who, knowing the odds, thought they'd be sweetining their chances if they made included self-destruction at every juncture. It's a thrill ride, and made during the darker days of the cold war (Reagan's 2nd year, the USSR ruled by a sucession of dying old men) and populated by almost bloodless charachters, the movie at times looks like a documentary. The meat of the book doesn't really translate well because, like most of Thomas' books, the prose are based on high speed pulses of self-loathing and second guessing running through the minds of the central charachters' minds, and that doesn't make for scintilating dialog (or any dialog, really). It's like those superhero cartoons when Superman must actually orate all those things that, in comic books) stay in thought baloons. The film makers are game though, especially Eastwood who makes the Mitchell Gant charachter his own (I can't read any of the Mitchell Gant novels like "Firefox Down" or "Winterhawk" and substitute a more appealing visage for Gqant's scarred one). The film also has Kenneth Colley as the ill-fated Col. Kontarsky, the man responsible for securing the super-plane that Gant steals. Star Wars fans will remember him by site as the similarly bad-lucked Admiral Piett, the guy who keeps losing the Millenium Falcon thruought "Empire Strikes Back" (which came out 2 years earlier). The way he looks, you'd think Yuri Andropov would materialize out of nowhere and zap the dark-side at him.
Rating: Summary: the best part was the previews before the movie Review: i only recomend it for heavy sleepers
Rating: Summary: Not a bad espionage thriller Review: I remember when I first saw this 20 years ago on cable TV.
Rating: Summary: One of the best Cold War films ever made. Review: I saw this film on HBO and I was immediately amazed by it. I really enjoyed this movie. The effects were impressive and Clint Eastwood's performance in this film was also a good one. I hope that Warner Bros. releases this film on DVD.
Rating: Summary: One of my two least favorite movies Review: I saw this movie in the theatre and was so incredibly bored with it, that I walked out. I've only done that with two movies...and I've sat through some terrible movies! What a waste of time. It gets a star because it helps if you suffer from insomnia.
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