Firefox

Firefox (1982)

Runtime: 136 minutes

Directed by: Clint Eastwood

Starring: Clint, Freddie Jones, David Huffman, Warren Clarke, Ronald Lacey

From: The Malpalso Company (no, it wasn't Mozilla that made this)

This is one of three movies I saw today. That was not the plan but that is how things turned out. I'll explain things in the review below, via Letterboxd:

I was not planning on watching three movies today but that's what ended up happening. I'll talk about the other two tomorrow as they are related to each other; here is the third one, which of course I've known of for years but I was not inspired to watch it until one day awhile ago I saw a parent viewing the film on TV and they remarked they really liked it. Soon after that I found it on DVD for a few bucks at a flea market and yet it wasn't until today that I decided to actually stick the disc in the Blu-ray player and watch Firefox, w/ the aforementioned parent with me.

The plot isn't too complex: Star/producer/director Clint Eastwood plays Mitchell Gant, a former pilot in the Air Force who was in Vietnam and occasionally has problems with what is known now as PTSD. As he knows Russian he is recruited into a spy plot by both the UK and the United States to go into the Soviet Union and with the aid of sympathizers steal the title plane, a fictional piece of work that has some preposterous capabilities, such as flying up to Mach 6 and it partially being controlled by thought. The first half of the movie is the typical spy intrigue and trying to avoid detection by the KGB. Once the plane is stolen there's action and what was then state of the art special effects by John Dykstra, one of the people that did the effects in the original Star Wars films.

I've never read the 1977 novel by Craig Thomas that was the basis for this; no matter what, the story is kind of ridiculous all around. Yet, I was able to ignore that and how in real life the Soviets never would have successfully built such an aircraft (I understand such fears due to the Cold War; I am old enough to have been alive during the dying days of it) and I just went with the film and enjoyed it for what it is. It has some tense scenes in the first half and the second half has some thrilling ones. The cool score all around from Maurice Jarre-it's after he entered his electronic phase-helps too.

That parent isn't the only one who I've seen praise this pretty heavily. I can't go that far but while this is long at over 2 hours long, I was still entertained and that is what counts.