Action

Adventure

Comedy

Drama

Air America

IndieProd Company Productions

Carolco Pictures

United States of America

English

Mel Gibson

Robert Downey Jr.

Nancy Travis

Ken Jenkins

David Marshall Grant

Lane Smith

Art LaFleur

Ned Eisenberg

Marshall Bell

David Bowe

Burt Kwouk

Tim Thomerson

Harvey Jason

Natta Nantatanti

Purin Panichpan

Yanee Tramoth

Ernie Lively

Burke Byrnes

Michael Dudikoff

Sinjai Plengpanich

Wasan Uttamayothin

Christopher Robbins

Daniel Melnick

Lois Freeman-Fox

Roger Spottiswoode

John Bloom

Richard Rush

Allan Cameron

John Eskow

Mario Kassar

Michael J. Kagan

Charles Gross

Roger Deakins

Jane Jenkins

Andrew G. Vajna

Jon Jashni

Janet Hirshenson

Billy D. Lucas

Simon Kaye

Steve Spence

Dennis Bosher

Per Hallberg

Albert M. Shapiro

Allen Shapiro

Chaiyan Chunsuttiwat

Becky Mancuso-Winding

John Mollo

Gerry Levy

Vic Armstrong

Tony Reading

Robert Toft

Mark O'Kane

Noori Dehnahi

Avram D. Gold

Carl Schmidt

Lon Bender

Lisa Miller

John T. Reitz

Tim Sexton

Mike Proudfoot

Angela Wharton

Tommy Staples

Sukey Fontelieu

Gordon Hayman

Devon Heffley Curry

Joseph A. Mayer

Fred Carter

Paul Hodgson

Dan O'Connell

Bob Beher

Curtis Roush

John Higgins

Bob Kocourek

Brian Ralph

Artist W. Robinson

George Gibbs

Gregg Rudloff

William Henry

Lois Burwell

David E. Campbell

Elaine Bowerbank

Kevin Edland

Rob Harris

Phil Hetos

Thom 'Coach' Ehle

Alicia Stevenson

Patsy de Lord

Peter Robb-King

Tricia Cameron

Barbara Rutter

Frank Connor

Chere Rae

Steven Lambert

Donna Evans

Dana Dru Evenson

Doug Coleman

John Cenatiempo

Fraser Taggart

Nikki Williams

Debbie Lynn Ross

Callum McDougall

CinemaSerf

When "Billy" (Robert Downey Jr.) loses his pilot's licence after a lively misdemeanour, he finds himself working in war-torn Laos with the team at "Air America". This is a CIA-backed operation consisting of a disparate bunch of pilots whose job it is to fly in supplies to local villages. It's there that he meets "Gene" (Mel Gibson) and also where he realises that not only is it pretty dangerous out there, but that his paymasters are into the narcotics trade in quite a big way and, to make matters even more dodgy - one of his colleagues goes in for some illicit gun-running too. It does move along quickly enough, but the whole thing has a rather comic book feel to it. The writing is poor, the themes repeat themselves once too often and there is little chemistry from anyone on screen as the adventures rather lamely bumble along accompanied by a medicare AOR-style soundtrack. To be fair, it looks like Gibson is having some fun and it's always nice to see Burt Kwouk demonstrating just how little versatility he had as an actor - always looking perplexed, but otherwise all this is missing is Charlie Sheen.

I have a special love for this film, if for no other reason that the bulk of my college experience was spent on the cold war, the alphabet soup of PBSUCCESS, MKULTRA, JMWAVE, PAPERCLIP, COLDFEET, MKOFTEN, The Phoenix Program, ARTICHOKE, and my favorite (just because of how bad it sounds) Midnight Climax.

So a comedy about Air America was absolutely priceless. And, given that I am not one of those history nuts that cares about historical accuracy I can still sit back and enjoy something like this. I mean, honestly, so long as it's not a complete and total re-write... Hollywood can take it's liberties and edit what happened for drama, because, really, it just means that now people have heard of Air America.

And, honestly, when you choose to study the Cold War, people tend to think you're a conspiracy nut when you mention things like this, PBSUCCESS, Russians assassinating people with radiation poisoning and umbrella guns...

... So when something like this comes along, it's like yes... now people won't think I'm as crazy as Alex Jones.

And, you know, it features a song from the Seeds (and any real punk fan is going to drool over that) along with one of the better, if down played, soundtracks from the Vietnam Era. So it certainly has the music win.

And it's Gibson kind of hamming it up and doing a slightly saner version of his Lethal Weapon self... if oddly pacifistic. And RDJR, fresh out of rehab, proving to the world that he is actually capable of being a great actor when he is sober.

What you have is kind of an action movie without a lot of violence, set in the middle of a war zone, and based off of one of our intelligence black eyes in a way that doesn't take it too seriously, isn't heavy-handed or pretentious, masks any preachiness in a fun story, and really gets the point across without having to be Alan Alda at his worst.

Plus, it's a movie about skullduggery that doesn't resort to the Mission:Impossible/James Bond high action tropes. So, in a way, it's kind of a spy movie done right and... turned into a comedy.

Entertaining enough action-war movie thanks to the charisma of both Mel Gibson and Robert Downey Jr. The film also has some solid action scenes and direction, to go along with Roger Deakins's cinematography. From what I read about this, doesn't seem like many had fun making the movie, including Deakins and Downey. Still, I found it enjoyable even if Gibson's character shift didn't felt surface level. **3.0/5**

Official Trailer

Official 4K Restoration Trailer

Air America Trailer

Best Movies

Air America

Cast & Crew

Videos

Cast

Mel Gibson

Robert Downey Jr.

Nancy Travis

Ken Jenkins

David Marshall Grant

Lane Smith

Art LaFleur

Ned Eisenberg

Marshall Bell

David Bowe

Box office

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