Is producer Scott Perry of Austin an unlucky man or what?

Here he is with "Jetblast," a futuristic movie about dogfighting 747s that 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 film was completed shortly before September 11.

The market for violent mass-death comedies being a little depressed right now, I'm not sure what he's going to do with it. 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.

If you can sort of remove yourself from reality right now, it's the very 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 fiance, 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.)

An extremely well-made movie. I'm sure that Perry will soon be screening it for glassy-eyed distributors. God help him.

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. Drive-In Academy Award nominations for Summer Wilson, as the Captain, for saying "Get me out of these wet panties"; Bonnie Brantley and Beka Kratuchvil, as the squealing bimbo cheerleaders pressed into service as dogfighting commercial airline pilots; and Tom LeGros, the director, co-producer and co-writer, for doing things the drive-in way.

Three and a half stars. Joe Bob says check it out.