Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Masterful Movie

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Rather nicely done for the genre. Scott Bakula is flying a small Cessna from Pago Pago to Norfolk Island and finds himself lost over the wide Pacific due to instrument malfunction. No ships around -- not that anyone knows where he is -- and the only other traffic is an Air New Zealand Boeing passenger plane, piloted by Robert Loggia. Bakula calls an airport and declares an emergency. His plane is low on fuel and he plans on ditching in a few hours before the sun sets. Loggia, informed of the situation, decides to help Bakula. The rest of the film consists of Loggia and Bakula trying with increasing desperation to find each other in the darkening skies so that Loggia can guide Bakula to the nearest airport at Aukland. They get the job done, but not without a lot of intervening problems.There's nothing particularly outstanding about the acting. All the principals are professionally competent. And there are some nice shots of a Boeing heavy in a sunlit sky. Bakula's little Cessna, a goofy-looking low-winged crop duster, looks like a joke unto itself.The script is a little stereotyped. Bakula simply MUST have a pregnant wife back home who wants him to quit his freelance flying job. And, hearing of the impending disaster, she MUST be patched through to Loggia's airplane so that he can pass sentimental messages back and forth. The script is at its best when it sticks to technical matters and the directing is best when the actors speak in dry, crisp tones. Pilots don't scream at one another over the radio.Whoever did the special effects for the thunderstorm that the planes have to fly through should be fired. Bakula shouts: "I'm flying into a thunderhead!" Immediate -- and I mean like right away -- the camera goes ape, shaking all over the place as if being kicked from all directions, the lightning flashes from the strobe lights are constant and blindingly bright, and the electronic thunder is constantly crashing around our ears. Loggia's huge passenger plane goes through almost as much turmoil as Bakula's little Cessna.That's wretched excess. A more imaginative approach to the thunderstorm experience would be built up gradually, with intimations of mortality, a few dim booms first, and some diffuse pink flashes in the distance before the impact, to give the audience a chance to worry properly. And the little Cessna shouldn't be whacked around. It should fall and rise in excessive swoops. The apparent danger is vitiated by the fact that everything lets go at once. There's no tension or anxiety. As it is, when Bakula yells, "I'm LOSING IT!", there's no evidence that his airplane is being battered any more than it was when he was in control.The film holds a viewer's interest, though. It's no fun to be lost over the ocean in a small plane and have to ditch. Look at Amelia Earhart. It happened to me, too, and it was scary as hell, though it was a bright sunny afternoon off Montauk Point and the seas were light. Ditching in the dark must be a nightmare. There are tense scenes aboard Loggia's plane too. Just how much is he willing to risk to save a single life? Considering that he has not only his own crew but 88 passengers aboard, many of them children. He risks quite a lot actually, small things first, then more important things, like dumping fuel to create a contrail.An interesting job for a TV movie.

I have watched this movie every Christmas since it came out. And the copy we have is a very old video! It's impossible to find in DVD form--I don't know why,because it is one of Robert Loggia's best movies, and Scott Bakula's as well. It's hard to believe a movie that is mostly a conversation between two pilots flying in separate planes over the ocean can be so moving, but it is. It is also suspenseful-keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout. This movie is a great example of the ability of one person to encourage another through difficult times. Brings to mind "Flight of the Phoenix" (the one with Jimmy Stewart), in how people work together to solve a seemingly impossible situation. What adds to the specialness of this movie is that it is based on a true incident.

If you fly or have ever flown as a passenger out over an ocean and experienced its vastness, or if you've ever been lost in the middle of nowhere without a map, at night and running out of gas, then you'll totally relate to this movie about the rescue of a solo Cessna pilot lost over the ocean between Pogo Pogo and Auckland, New Zealand. I found it suspenseful and engrossing in spite of thinking I knew how it'd end. The leads are well acted by Scott Bakula & Robert Loggia despite both of them being strapped to their pilot seats for most of the movie. I found myself on the edge of my seat at times. There characters form an interesting father-son type relationship exclusively from their conversations over the radio. I found their conversations the most interesting part of the movie. And at the end I was totally blown away to discover that this was a true story!

This film is a pleasant enough way to while away a Sunday afternoon. It's becoming something of a cult classic with students (in Britain) due to the casting- Scott Bakula will forever be associated with Dr Samuel Beckett but the more legendary of the two doctors surely has to be Dr Karl Kennedy.....