The Concorde: Airport '79
release year: 1979
genre: airplane disaster
viewing setting: home DVD, 5/26/04
synopsis: An arms dealer must eliminate someone who knows of his schemes, and the only way to do that is to shoot Concorde that she's on out of the sky.
impressions: Entertaining yet often stupid. It's fun to watch the Concorde dodge missiles and flip around, yet there are logic holes big enough to, well, fly a plane through. I don't care if you depressurize a plane or not, you can't open a window at 40,000 feet and stick your arm out to fire a flare gun. Another one: despite the obvious intent to destroy the plane, it actually takes off again from Paris and subjects those still aboard to yet more danger. Couldn't anyone have figured out that something was going on? Also, George Kennedy is a full-fledged, veteran pilot in this one, and he cracks all kinds of crude jokes and innunendos. Actually, all of the pilots do, though you have to pay attention and read between the lines to catch everything. In the "annoying characters who you wished would fall out of the plane" department, the movie had a slacker saxophone-playing kid who played music in the bathroom while smoking dope, and an old lady who always had to be in the bathroom no matter what was going on. On the plus side, there seemed to be a good attempt to give background and characterization to many of those aboard and on the ground.
things to watch for: The scenes where the plane flies upside down and the passengers fall all over the place. Funny.
something this movie has that no other movie has: George Kennedy getting some.
acting: Standing out were George Kennedy as the jolly old pilot, Alain Deion as the suave French pilot, and Robert Wagner (number two from the Austin Powers movies) as the evil arms dealer.
final word: Worth seeing, but not a classic of this genre.
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