Review of Air America

Introduction

Air America came at a point where Mel Gibson`s already successful career was about to go stratospheric - made after Lethal Weapon 2, Air America was followed by a string of hits - including Lethal Weapon 3, Forever Young, Maverick and Braveheart.

Gibson plays an American pilot employed by the CIA`s "secret" airline in Laos during the Vietnam war. The CIA are supplying food, the locals are transporting drugs and Gibson is running guns - building a "nest-egg" for the future. Along comes Downey Jr., man with a conscience who decides that something needs to be done about the drug trafficking.

Primarily a comedy, occasionally a serious movie, Air America never quite lived up to expectations when it was released theatrically - let`s see how it has aged!

Video

The video is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen and is best described as being of "above average to good" quality. There is a slight hint of grain at times and the occasional fleck of dirt on the print, which does however maintain stability and contrast throughout.

Visually, the film has fantastic locations and sets and looks superb - with beautiful scenery, which is well shot, and used to good effect throughout the film.

The special effects also look quite good, with plane crashes, explosions and gunfire amongst the filmmakers` repertoire.

Audio

The soundtrack comes in Dolby Digital Surround, which is disappointing for a major film only ten years old, which really should be presented in Dolby Digital 5.1.

The sound is of reasonable quality for as far as Dolby Pro-Logic goes, but in places the dialogue channel is set too low and the speech is therefore difficult to make out at times.

There are plenty of sound effects and music in the film, which all sounds alright, but I was left thinking how good the crashes, explosions and gunfire would sound in Dolby Digital.

Features

The extras consist of a photo gallery, a making of and trailers.

The making of runs for just over five minutes and suffers from poor picture quality and being an extended trailer with very limited making-of material to say the least!

The disc is packaged in a black Amaray case .

Conclusion

Overall, Air America is an above-average movie, that is let down by a relatively weak DVD - good video, a disappointing Dolby Pro-Logic soundtrack and poor extras.

The cast is good and play their parts well, with Gibson and Downey forming a good on-screen pairing. The supporting cast isn`t too bad either, although a couple of the characters are irritating at times.

The script is good, swaying from comedy to serious at times, and maintaining a reasonable pace and with a fair helping of action to keep the viewer interested.

In summary, this is one to rent as the disc isn`t particularly appealing, despite the lower than average £15.99 price.