Mach 2 Reviews

A routine action picture of the bumpy flight variety, fueled by political conspiracy and Brian Bosworth's stoic maschismo. Right-wing Vice President Pike (Cliff Robertson) plans to stimulate America's economy with his own, personal covert war effort and his secret service allies, including Agent Rogers (Michael Dorn), have no compunction about killing to cover up Pike's ongoing sale of arms to both sides of the Balkan conflict. Unfortunately, Pike's scheme has been copied onto a disc that's been mailed to pacifist Stuart Davis (David Hedison), Pike's rival in the upcoming presidential campaign. While Davis and his entourage take off for peace negotiations, Pike orders Rogers and his lackeys to seize the aircraft. The good guys are caught unawares, though Davis is fortunate enough to have air force specialist Tyree (Bosworth) on his side. To make certain the flight crashes, Rogers' henchmen kill or disable anyone with any aviation know-how. Meanwhile, in Washington D.C., reporter Phil Jefferson (Bruce Weitz) has started investigating rumors about Pike's agenda. After telling the control tower that they're Balkan terrorists with a nuclear weapon aboard, Rogers and his cohorts sabotage the plane and parachute to safety. Though Tyree washed out of pilot school years ago, he's the only suitable candidate to figure out how to land the plane safely. But can he do it before they're shot out of the sky by panicked government officials? Viwered go into a film like this knowing that Bosworth is too massive a presence to fail his crash course in air safety, so there's little suspense here. Action buffs have to settle for airborne scuffles and the satisfaction of watching a greasy, fat cat politician get his comeuppance.