Firefox DVD > Reviews > Foxbat

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Hated it
Story	Very ordinary
Characters / Performances	Weak
Special Effects	Unmemorable
Soundtrack	Weak

Advantages:	Sanity offer a 28 day full refund
Disadvantages:	Oh .  .  . everything

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

1982: I'm 9 and my dad has foolishly been trusted to go and hire a VHS video for the evening. Being a dad, obviously he doesn't understand the complexities of cinema releases, and the then 2 year wait before release onto video. He's also easily fooled by 'soundalike' films with 'lookalike' covers and z-list cast and crews.

That is how we came to sit through 90 or so minutes of sheer hell starring Michael Saxon and directed by Po-Chih Leong..yes..THE Po-Chih Leong. After 89 minutes my mum feebly asked where Clint Eastwood had gotten to, and why it all looked so cheap. I was still hoping for grizzly old Clint to provide a cameo, but no, my luck was out. My dad had managed to bring home the delight that was 'Foxbat' a 1977 chop-socky / cold war / spy / plane / whatever mess of a movie, repackaged and re-released onto home video to hang onto Clint Eastwoods 1982 big budget actioner 'Firefox'. A lesson for you all there.

When I did finally get to see 'Firefox' it was a TV showing, and I was probably about 14. I thought 'Firefox' was cool. In the same kind of way that I thought Def Leppard were cool. Ironically, 'Firefox' is now as anachronistic a laughter-fest as poodle haired rockers in lycra singing with their eyes closed and with fingers in ears.

In adapting Craig Thomas's novel about a Soviet aircraft capable of Mach 6, anti radar cloaking and thought controlled weaponry, Clint Eastwood has put together one dog of a movie. Alex Lasker and Wendell Wellman are those responsible for a screenplay that you could shoot peas through. Cliched and predictable at every turn, lacking suspense, wit, action, and any sort of entertainment, we are subjected to a very long and dull chase. Eastwood brings the action to the screen in an adequate manner, but is hamstrung mainly by the ineffectual screenplay and later on, some special effects that aren't so special.

Eastwood plays retired US Airforce Major Mitchell Gant. A hotshot pilot, of Russian parentage, who suffering from post 'nam trauma has disappeared into the back of beyond. The US Government track him down and force him out of retirement, asking him to go undercover in Russia and to steal a prototype aircraft and fly it back to the west.

They stick a false moustache on him, and comb his hair the other way. The give him the passport of some bloke in a loud shirt, and smuggle him into Russia, where everybody looks stern and is a member of the KGB. They all talk with clipped sinister accents and are all called Dimitri. Clint avoids lots of Dimitris and hooks up with the resistance...or partisans..or whoever they are. It doesn't really matter, as all they do is take his false moustache off and comb his hair back the other way. They give him a false identity and head off across Russia.

They avoid lots more KGB agents, and some people get killed, and some explosions go off and Clint gets into the plane and then he flies off and then he refuels and then the Russians fly after him in another Firefox and then they have a dogfight and then I don't really care any more....

Firefox is a turgid piece of crap. Totally without redeeming qualities. The story plods along steamrollering logic and development as it goes. Things just happen, and then something else happens, and it's all so very easy and without any tension. Every character is a 1 dimensional stereotype. Big bushy moustaches and lots of 'niets', or long black overcoats and silly cackling. The dialogues is risible or did I mean execrable or did I mean both? The minutes fly by like hours, and any drama that could of have been wrung from the potentially suspenseful under cover operations of Clint is blown by some mediocre direction and slapdash plotting.

But...for those fearing that the second half of the film may be just as bad as the first, I can tell you that it is not. No, it's twice as bad. John (Star Wars) Dykstra was asked to develop special effects to show the Firefox aircraft tearing up the skies. But struggling with mattes and variable back projection, Dykstra's efforts are pretty poor. The Firefox is rendered as a smudgy, wobbly, black rectangle moving erratically over speeded up skyscapes. Eastwood provides no thrills with his Tesco value direction (it's not right, but it's okay) and the air sequences drag like a church service.

Eastwood plays his role as Eastwood, all sneers and growls, while the rest of the cast is literally a who's who of British stage and screen. Freddie Jones is his usual jittery, sweaty, self as the architect of the plan to steal Firefox. He manages to come out of this farrago with his dignity intact, unlike Nigel Hawthorne, Warren Clarke, Ronald Lacey, and Clive Merrison amongst others. Karenuk will spot Doctor Who actors a go-go in here, but George Pravda will feel 'The Deadly Assasin' was a far more worthwhile outing. Ironically, Warren Clarke will probably agree that this is as arse numbing an adventure as 'The War Games'.

Other than the appalling dialogue, there is no fun to be had anywhere within the 136 minute running time of 'Firefox'. Russia is doubled by Austria, and to his credit Bruce Surtees at least ensures the film looks good. The score, by the great Maurice Jarre, is an embarrasing synthesised effort that was probably dated in 1982. A case of soundtracking by numbers, we get upbeat military pomp cue, shimmery dark mysterious shadowy cue, it's all very very predictable and I can only imagine they cornered Mr Jarre and threatened him with a good kerbing if he didn't score the movie.

The transfer onto DVD is adequate, non anormorphic, and the vintage means it's quite soft and blurry in places, but is generally rather good. Sound is presented in an undetermined surround mix. Dolby pro-logic masquerading as 5.1 methinks.

The packaging is a nasty cardboard flippy thing, Warner Brothers love these. Extras? Trailer, scene selection, and rather more interesting is a 30 minute British documentary on the making of. Shot in 1982 and with numerous Clint interviews and clips, it shows that Clint at least was under the impression he was putting together a good movie.

Perhaps an Orang-Utang would have enlivened proceedings.

My recommendation is to search out 'Foxbat' instead, after all it's not every day you see a sumo wrestler get killed by a toothbrush being rammed into his ear. Nice.

And finally, no I didn't propose Firefox under the title of 'Firefox in DVD'. Had I thought more carefully, I might have titled it 'Firefox in the bin'.