Firefox (1982)

In Plane Sight

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

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Clint Eastwood's early 1980s action movie was steeped in both a Cold War fear of Russia and on Star Wars, but one critic dubbed it "Bressonian" for its glacial pace and unusual attention to mundane details. Eastwood plays Mitchell Gant, a Vietnam vet who is plagued with flashbacks. When the Russians develop a super-plane with mind-control weaponry, the Americans get nervous. They cook up a plan to steal it, but Gant is the only man alive who can actually fly the plane. None of the other characters come to life, it takes well over an hour before Gant even gets to the plane, and the final half-hour plays a lot like the final space battle in Star Wars, but the movie is gripping in a slow, sure way. Despite the general sense of disappointment from critics and fans, it was Eastwood's second biggest hit of the 1980s, after Sudden Impact. Keep an eye out for Ronald Lacey, who played the bad guy Toht in Raiders of the Lost Ark the previous year.

With: Clint Eastwood, Freddie Jones, David Huffman, Warren Clarke, Ronald Lacey, Kenneth Colley, Klaus Löwitsch, Nigel Hawthorne, Stefan Schnabel, Thomas Hill, Clive Merrison, Kai Wulff, Dimitra Arliss, Austin Willis, Michael Currie
Written by: Alex Lasker, Wendell Wellman, based on a novel by Craig Thomas
Directed by: Clint Eastwood
MPAA Rating: PG
Running Time: 136 minutes
Date: January 20, 2010