|
JETBLAST |
|
Independent comedy about commercial
airliners that fly into skyscrapers, shoot each other down, and
pretty much create violent chaos in the skies over what used to
be America--completed just a few days before September 11, 2001.
Is producer Scott Perry of Austin an unlucky man or WHAT? This
futuristic story of dogfighting 747s is technically one of the
finest low-budget movies ever made. Shooting with digital
camcorders and a $6,000 computer animation system, he created a
fictional world (America in 2030, divided into warring
independent states, with all efforts at air traffic control long
since abandoned) so realistic that he actually shows a nuclear
bomb dropped on the Alamodome and a fighter jet crashing into the
Alamo in a fiery explosion. The same team that brought us the
inspired "Teenage Catgirls in
Heat" was going for a cross between
"Waiting for Guffman" and "Death Race
2000," using a fine
ensemble cast of improv-comedy actors and a whole mess of jet
airliner models. It's the gruesomely funny story of a blacklisted
Air Force captain (Summer Wilson) who is pretty much universally
blamed and hated for the Alamodome fiasco. (They were supposed to
be dropping leaflets but they unloosed a nuke missile instead.)
Now she'll do anything to fly again, so she hooks up with the
lamest airline in existence, Iowa Air, run by her old mechanic
and aging stoner Doc, played by legendary Texas stand-up comic
Kerry Awn. Doc cobbles together planes from an old junkyard and
makes sure that, if you do things like always land on the LEFT
wheel first, they WILL take off and land. After the Second Civil
War, there are no rules about who can fly, where they can fly, or
WHAT they can fly, so Iowa Air flies aging jetliners with no
seats--the passengers stand up, subway-style--and they careen
through a sky thick with sky jockeys, crossing all the new
nation-states like Disney's Colorado (with a waterslide from
Denver to Gunnison) and the New Confederacy (mostly truckers).
(New Mexico and Arizona were given back to Mexico, but Mexico
didn't want to take them, so a war was fought to FORCE Mexico to
take them.) Cole Spainhour--who in real life is a criminal
prosecutor in Georgetown, Texas--plays the diabolical "CEO," the
commander who REALLY caused the Alamodome explosion, Summer's old fiancé, now an airline mogul surrounded by supermodel bodyguards
and a robot who tells him how brilliant he is. When Summer takes
out his best pilot, "The Chicken," in the game of the same name,
he swears vengeance, and the REAL airline wars are on. Despite
all the special effects, the best moments come from the comic
dialogue, especially scenes involving Summer and her queasy co-
pilot, Andy Cobb. ("Come to Mama," she says while flying the
plane, hoping her nemesis will attack. "No! Don't come to mama!"
screams Cobb.) Twenty-eight dead bodies. No breasts. Twenty-six
plane crashes, with fireballs. Two exploding office buildings.
One nuclear explosion. One brawling catfight. One barefoot
massage. Knee to the groin. O-ring Frisbee bombs. Robot abuse.
In-flight aileron repair, with duct tape. One Texas-style hanging
(unsuccessful). One long continuous motor vehicle chase. Kung Fu.
Shoe Fu. Wilson has the best line: "Get me out of these wet
panties." With Bonnie Brantley and Beka Kratuchvil as the
squealing bimbo cheerleaders pressed into service as dogfighting
commercial airline pilots. Directed by Tom LeGros. Three and a
half stars. |
© 2002 Joe Bob Briggs All Rights Reserved.