Day 25 Firefox (1982)

I’ve seen a number of Clint Eastwood’s non westerns, and you know what, Clint runs in his movies quite a bit. He doesn’t run in action scenes so much as his character runs for exercise.  This movie starts with one of those sequences,  and it turns out his character Major Gant, is an Air Force veteran,  suffering PTSD, and he is being asked to take on the spy mission of stealing a Soviet fighter plane.

The Russians have developed a new plane with stealth technology,  VR interface,  and incredibly fast speed. Gant is to infiltrate the military complex and steal the plane. He has been chosen for three reasons,  he speaks Russian,  he will fit the specialized pressure suit needed to fly the plane, and he resembles a corrupt businessman who is a heroin smuggler and can travel in the country largely under the radar.

This is really a spy movie for the first half with Clint playing cat and mouse with the KGB, and questioning the reliability of his controllers in the agency that has recruited him. A lot of people will think this is slow paced but I felt it was helping to ratchet up the tension.  We do get a lot of exposition from the Soviet side as well. There is plenty osts suspicion to go around. Obviously it was not filmed in Russia but the location scouts found convincing substitutes and the art department decorated convincingly. I was not sure why all the skulking around was necessary but there were a couple of twists that I was surprised at. The PTSD from his time as a POW comes into play occasionally to throw a monkey wrench in when the plot needs goosing.

In a interesting side note, the tech development was facilitated by Soviet Jews and that is inserted as a topical reference point. Along with the brutality of the KGB interrogation,  there is a lot of drama being built up. The motivations of the conspirators is a political plot line that was right in line with American Foreign policy at the time. There is also a science fiction element to the film in that the VR  is controlled by a computer which reads the pilots thoughts, but of course you have to think in Russian. The mock up of the plane seems prescient,  it looks quite a bit like a Stealth fighter.

Sometimes Clint is accused of just being the same stoic character in his movies,  but I think he does a solid job here. He is frustrated by the things he is forced to do, and at the same time sympathetic to the scientists who are helping him. The flashback episodes of PTSD are effectively demonstrated as well. It’s not until the last 45 minutes that he gets locked in a cockpit. The special effects take over much of the rest of the film. The cinematography and choices of shots is fine, sometimes the visuals are a little outdated.  There is a lot of talking exposition from the Soviet brain trust, but that does help break up the time spent staring at Clint in his helmet. 

The climax of the film involves a chase and choreographed dogfight that would be worthy of Top Gun or Independence Day if the technology was a little better.  Clint directed the film, and it’s pace is deliberate by today’s standards, but I recall liking it just fine when Dee and I went to see it, I want to say at one of those Cinema General Screens at the Santa Anita mall.