Furie (co-writer of the script with executive producer Kevin Elders), is less credible than the last, thanks even more to laughable dialogue than to its far-out premise. Alas, it was only a matter of time until the “Rambo” fantasy trickled down to the high school level.Įach moment in “Iron Eagle,” which was directed energetically by Sidney J.
With the help of a crusty retired Air Force colonel (Louis Gossett Jr., in a parody of his Oscar-wining performance in “An Officer and a Gentleman”), Gedrick commandeers an F-16 fighter to rescue his father.
When it looks as though Thomerson is going to be executed and nobody’s going to do anything about it, Gedrick, who’s always wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and already knows how to fly, decides to take matters into his own hands. Jason Gedrick is the adoring 18-year-old son of a jet fighter pilot (Tim Thomerson) who’s shot down and taken prisoner by a fictional Middle-Eastern country-read Libya-while on a routine reconnaissance mission. But don’t take this as one of those so-bad-it’s-good endorsements: The film is a total waste of time. As a result, “Iron Eagle” has an unintended hilarity that builds and builds. It does, and in doing so achieves a kind of perfection of awfulness that only earnest effort can produce. Very early on, when you start suspecting where “Iron Eagle” (citywide) is heading, you wonder whether it will dare to plunge into all-out ludicrousness.