Flight of the Phoenix English Movie
When a real life air crash becomes the inspiration for two major movies, it must mean something to moviegoers. But in spite of the scorching sandy desert where pilot Dennis Quaid's flight crashes, this film leaves you colder than an expedition to Iceland.
It just doesn't seem to say anything that we haven't heard before. Quite the contrary, the film takes a devilish delight in piling on the clichés...as though the film was celebrating the most hackneyed elements of a disaster epic.
The actors - all survivors of a crash that goes way beyond the immediate - try to look parched and anxious...try being the key word! With director John Moore's staccato narrative not really getting anywhere beyond the sand dunes the narrative seems to stretch out with as much undulating endlessness as the deserts.
The problem is not so much with the ambitious plot, which tries to be a titanic in mid-air, but with the characters who seem to be clumped together in mounds of absurd interaction and action.
They sneer, pray, fight and rebuild their flight back into civilisation - but without getting us involved in their awful predicament beyond the cursory glance of a spectator who sees a car crash on the highway and then drives away.
In spite of a drama-driven plot, the film lacks dramatic tension. Most of the time the characters seem to be following the rules laid own by the disaster genre rather than people caught in a bona fide crisis.
John Moore's direction is strangely sterile. There are no interludes of any notable high drama in the narrative. Even the most powerful episode is treated with disdainful vapidity...as though the director had decided he'd tell a crooked tale as straight as possible. In doing so, he seems to have lost the plot.
Strange, coming from a director who made the pungent and raw war film "Behind Enemy Lines". Maybe John Moore wanted to have a good time telling a messy story.
