Firefox isn't your usual Eastwood film, he's almost branching out into Star Wars territory here with this Sci-Fi heavy Cold War Spy thriller. The effects like every 80's film have dated badly but for a movie made in 1982 they are rather good. Eastwood directs himself in what is a pretty average performance by his own high standards. The majority of the cast is made up by British character actors. Warren Clarke is really good but Freddie Jones and Nigel Hawthorne are pretty hammy. Also Raiders of the Lost Ark fans can spot Ronald Lacey playing Semelovsky a Jewish scientist. The first half of the film is a spy thriller and can be pretty nail biting at times as Clint gets his papers checked at regular intervals. Also he's suffering from the same post Vietnam War disorder that John Rambo had in First Blood and that really adds to the tension. The second half is more like Star Wars and is really great stuff. So better ice up at a cold one and enjoy Firefox for what it is, Cold War entertainment at it's best.
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LuboLarsson4 September 2006
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BroadswordCallinDannyBoy15 February 2006During the height of the Cold War, the Soviet military develops a super high-tech fighter aircraft - it flies fast, has deadly weapons, and has technology that allows the pilot to control guided missiles with his mind. Basically any army with this baby in its arsenal will have air superiority. Clint is assigned to steal it from the heart of Soviet territory for the USA.
The plot is fairly generic and in this day and age most Cold War thrillers have seem to have lost much of their edge, but this is nonetheless an entertaining film from Eastwood. It is not one of his best and not one that he will be remembered for, but no one can deny the slickness of the plane of the title. The final section of the film, which admittedly does take a while to get to, has Clint flying around and raising hell is a fun ride and on par with the final chase in "Where Eagles Dare" in terms of entertainment. However, the buildup has enough suspense to make the whole movie worth a watch. 7/10
Rated PG: violence -
AlsExGal9 July 2017... and by my count this line was spoken at least seven times here.
This is a cold war thriller from Clint Eastwood about a Vietnam vet fighter pilot sent undercover and across the iron curtain to steal a new Soviet super-plane. The first two-thirds of the film are a treat, with a lot of tense scenes of Clint and his sympathetic Russian contacts narrowly escaping capture. The last section is where the film loses steam, with a lot of repetitious, dated fx shots of the jet in action.
Warren Clarke is memorable as Clint's chief contact. Also featured are Freddie Jones, Ronald Lacey, Nigel Hawthorne, and Kenneth Colley. As you may have noticed, there are no women listed; this is the rare film with no substantial female presence at all. The real star, though, other than Clint, is the fictional MiG31 "Firefox" fighter jet, invisible to radar, capable of Mach 6 speeds as well as full nuclear armament. The film also borders on science fiction with the jet's thought-controlled weapon systems.
It is a 50/50 proposition as to whether you will like this one. For me it was fun to see Eastwood stretch his directorial skills in a different direction, and even more fun if you actually remember the cold war...or were even alive during the cold war for that matter. -
eworrall1 November 2004Clint Eastwood plays Michael Gant, a burnt out veteran sent into the Soviet Union on a desperate mission to steal the greatest warplane ever built.
Minimal training, mental problems, murderous allies, constant danger. His only qualification - he speaks Russian, he knows how to fly and he fits the flight suit.
What I like most about Firefox is how it really puts you in Clint Eastwood's shoes. His character Gant is no super spy - he's a war veteran suffering severe mental problems as a result of his POW experiences. At every twist and turn of the plot the movie captures his tension and fear. His inexperience and mistakes endanger him repeatedly. His only protection - a thin, unravelling web of deception and a fickle KGB desire to observe a little before pouncing.
A must see for fans of atmospheric espionage films and Clint Eastwood. -
ma-cortes1 October 2011This thrilling and intriguing movie is set during Cold War , the URSS has developed a high-tech jet called MiG-31 that can be partially controlled by a neuralink . The Soviets have made a sophisticated aircraft , the latest aeronautic marvel that flies at 6 times the speed of sound, is invulnerable to radar, and worst of all it has a lethal technological weapons system that the pilot can control through cerebral waves and thought . As soon as the pilot detects a threat - either visually or a scope - his brain impulses will direct a missile to that threat , without so much as pushing a button . The American fighter pilot assigned by Secret Service (Freddie Jones) is the Vietnam veteran named Mitchell Gant (Clint Eastwood), a burned-out USAF ace pilot, is smuggled into the USSR to infiltrate the Russian airbase at Bilyarsk, where the supersonic fighting plane Firefox/MiG-31 is being terminated , he must rob it and avoid the mass production that would give the Russians a huge advance . Officer Mitchell Gant goes behind Russian lines and faces a dangerous assignment . In Russia is helped by various secret agents (Warren Clarke, Nigel Hawthorne , Ronald Lacey) against KGB (Hugh Frazer , David Gant) and Soviet officials ( Kenneth Colley ,Oliver Cotton , Klaus Lowitsch ) .
Eastwood directs , produces and plays this exciting film about a pilot sent into the Soviet Union on a mission to steal a prototype jet fighter . This overlong picture takes a while to take off , but when it does , it's cool film . It contains suspense , thrills , intrigue , action-packed and is pretty entertaining . Spectacular aerial pursuits and dogfighting in ¨Star Wars¨ style created by FX expert John Dykstra who made special visual effects in several films such as ¨Galactica , Star Trek ,Batman , Spiderman , X men and Hanckock ¨. Ample support cast full of prestigious British actors who make good performances as as Freddie Young , Kenneth Colley , Stefan Schnabel , David Huffman , Nigel Hawthorne , Warren Clarke and Ronal Lacey , among them . Colorful and appropriate cinematography by Bruce Surtees ,son of great cameraman Robert Surtess and Eastwood's usual . Thrilling and suspenseful score by the maestro Maurice Jarre . Rating : Acceptable and passable but slow-moving and over lengthy . -
Installation_At_Orsk12 August 2006I took my username from this movie, so I guess I like it...
I like it more than I should, though. The Craig Thomas novel it's based on is tense and exciting, a cat-and-mouse game between Gant and the Soviet authorities both on the ground and in the air, but despite much of the dialogue being taken almost verbatim from the book the movie is sluggish and decidedly lacking in thrills. The first half of the film drags terribly, and Clint is a granite-faced cypher who displays none of the fear and tension felt by his character's literary counterpart.
The Firefox itself is an interesting design (to which the planes from Stealth bear more than a few similarities despite the 20+ years between the two films), but apart from a handful of shots the special effects looked dreadfully fake even back in the Eighties, never mind now. (The best special effects are ones that very few people will ever notice - *all* of the Soviet helicopters seen in the film are models.)
So why do I like it so much? Probably because it's one of very few true technothrillers to reach the screen. There are no romantic interludes or comic-relief sidekicks or any other distractions of the type so often forced in by studios - it's all about the mission. Get in, steal the plane, get out. The grim, monolithic, paranoid nature of the Soviet state also comes across well, giving the film a distinctive atmosphere. Gant enters a grey, joyless world where everybody is watching everyone else, the first flashes of colour coming - intentionally, I'm sure - when he finally steals the Firefox and soars away into the dawn sky.
One amusing note is that the film's most famous line - Baranovich's exhortation, in echoing flashback, that Gant must "Think in Russian!" was added after shooting - along with the previously unmentioned 'rearward missile' - because test audiences didn't understand what the Rearward Defence Pod was, despite it having been used earlier in the film and even described by one of the Russians! -
sergione18 March 2008The only reason I bought this movie is it related to the USSR. It's quite explicit on the image my country had out there. I can only guess why Soviet propaganda ignored it's existence giving enough attention same time to Rambo, Rocki IV and Red Dawn. Most of the above mentioned movies makes you rather laugh on the "accuracy" of Russian characters and soldiers in particular. Firefox is outstanding in this respect. All uniforms, guns and insignias are just OK if not to say perfect! Living not far from one of the metro stations (Kolomenskaya) adds certain thrill while watching it. Otherwise nothing special. Checking the E-bay for this DVD you get quite a low price which speaks for itself.
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dworldeater15 December 2019Firefox is an espionage Cold War era action/thriller that is slick looking and competently made. It had some state of the art special f/x for its time and is one of Clint's most expensive productions. In comparison to his other work, Firefox is neither his best or worst film work. Clint's performance is okay, but the story is really held together by an excellent supporting cast of very talented British actors. Due to the subject matter and f/x, this movie is definitely dated and easily fits in the Reagan era of Cold War action movies and thrillers like Rambo First Blood PT2, Red Dawn and The Hunt For Red October. All of the above are much better, but is not laughable like guilty pleasure Iron Eagle(which I actually like a lot, but can't take seriously). Firefox is a serious minded production, but does not hold up as well against Clint's better movies or similar, more memorable movies that came out during the same period.
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The Soviets have developed a new revolutionary jet fighter Firefox that could evade radar and function using brain waves. They recruit Russian speaking ex-Vietnam pilot Mitchell Gant (Clint Eastwood) into the Soviet Union to steal Firefox. He is still haunted by his experience in Vietnam. He is assumed to be expendable and takes the identity of a heroine smuggler who is tracked by the KGB.
I don't know why he is taking on the identity of a drug smuggler. That seems like the worst idea ever. The whole infiltration is completely unbelievable. It's also pretty lifeless. The movie is way too long. The plane is good fun and that's the only salvation. It just takes forever to get there. -
MadReviewer17 April 2001"Firefox", while definitely dated, is a good Cold War spy thriller that falls far short of being great. Clint Eastwood plays Mitchell Gant, a burned-out Vietnam fighter pilot who's enlisted to steal a high-tech, heavily-armed, stealth Soviet fighter plane right out of its Siberian hangar. The first half of the film is a John le Carre type thriller Clint sneaking into Moscow, assuming a Soviet pilot's identity, and making his way to the experimental Firefox fighter craft. The second half, when he climbs into the cockpit of the Firefox, is where the real fun begins.
While entertaining, the film isn't particularly great apart from Clint's gritty performance as Mitchell Gant, none of the other actors manage to stand out in any way. The jet fighter sequences also haven't stood the test of time they looked great in the Eighties, but now they just look dated and unrealistic. Certain scenes in the film are little more than padding, buying breathing room between action scenes and doing little else. There's enough tension and action scattered throughout the film to make `Firefox' fun, but there's much better Cold War movies than this (`The Russia House' and `The Hunt for Red October' easily come to mind), and there's certainly much better Clint Eastwood movies than this. B-/C+ -
This was so-so, one of those films that could have been much better had the editing been tighter, in this case in the first 90 minutes. About 20 of that could have been cut. As it was, it took too long for the action to kick in, and was a bit confusing in parts.
Once Clint Eastwood started getting near the plane he was going to hijack the film picked up immensely.
Even though the movie was made 25 years ago, the fighter plane still looks pretty awesome: a combination of a Stealth and Concorde. Too bad this wasn't made today with some great DTS sound. Perhaps a re-make of this would be the answer. -
planktonrules26 August 2017I saw this film when it originally came out in the theaters...well over 30 years ago. I'd enjoyed it, but times have changed, I have changed and technology has changed...so do I still think it's a decent movie? Well, surprisingly, yes...it still is pretty good.
The film is a real change of pace for Clint Eastwood. In this one, he plays a Vietnam War fighter pilot who is called out of reserves to help his country. They need an excellent pilot who can think in Russian to go into the USSR for a covert operation....to steal the Firefox fighter jet!! Why is it that important? Well, because they plane can apparently do about mach 6 AND it has a new neural interface...and it's much more advanced than American fighters.
Much of the film consists of the mission getting into the Soviet Union and then to the plane. To me, this was the most interesting part. Then, the final third or so of the film is flying the plane home...and avoiding all the missiles and the other Firefox fighter. This was amazingly made for 1982 but does look a bit dated today. You can't blame anyone for this...CGI technology just has improved tremendously since then. Overall, it's an exciting film and one that is far deeper and more interesting than a standard Eastwood shoot 'em up picture. Worth seeing.
By the way, although the film is mostly extremely well made, in the first of many (too many) flashback scenes, Eastwood's Phantom II jet turns into a Thunderchief fighter-bomber. This was a pretty sloppy use of stock footage. -
lost-in-limbo4 March 2007Major Mitchell Gant an ex-Vietnam pilot who suffers from mentally scarred flashbacks and lives a life in solitary in the woods. He's asked back onto a mission, which involves sneaking into the USSR in many disguises. So that he can steal the Russia's new high-tech MIG-31 fighter plane called the "Firefox", which its weaponry works on mind control. Since his America's best pilot, naturally his their first choice to get the plane and fly it back to western soil.
I read a lot complaints against Eastwood's pacing being quite sluggish and can't help but agree. Although the final half of the film might get all the applause with its visual effects and fast-paced action thrills. But actually, I got more out of the atmospherically brooding old hat spy set-up involving Eastwood's character travelling around Vienna (masquerading very effectively as Moscow) to get to the MIG-31. After getting to the jet, it simply falls into the unremarkable bracket and the visual gimmicks come off junky looking and lack any real spark despite the rapid build-up. When it comes to the end, it feels sudden and unfulfilling. Eastwood is pretty dry, but convincing nonetheless as Major Mitchell Gant (since he can get along alone by his magnetic screen presence) and he tackles the director's chair with sharply tight, but practically no-frills direction. The pacing throughout does seem to flounder, but Eastwood creates some moody scenes with gloomy lighting (plenty of nocturnal shots) and Bruce Surtees' burnished photography is splendidly framed to achieve an atmospheric air of growing paranoia. Maurice Jarre's vividly classy music score is titillatingly on the spot. Eastwood deliberately soaks up the bleakly audacious cold war story (adapted off Craig Thomas' 1977 novel) with an array of twists, alienation and minor suspense chipped out of Alex Lasker's hauntingly calculated, but choppy screenplay. Two weak points though, would be there's not much focus and some coincidences are hard to digest. Why I say minor in the tension, is because the suspense doesn't last real long and by being overlong it becomes too relaxed in its own high-strung set-up. The productive script is highly talkative and filled with political jargon, but settles in with some warm moments to share a bit light on the characters. The supporting cast are all capably solid with the likes of Freddie Jones, David Huffman, Warren Clarke, Kenneth Colley and Stefan Schnabel. The glazed up special effects by John Dykstra (who won an Oscar for his work on "Star Wars (1977)") might be mesmerizing and refreshing, but they are far from impressive with one or two arresting sequences executed in between many clumsy takes.
"Firefox" is nothing particularly exciting and far from a success, but I found it strangely captivating and a handsome looking feature. The idea just doesn't entirely translate on this occasion. -
It's not often that Clint Eastwood serves up a boring film, but Firefox is certainly one of his few mis-steps. Clint the director seems excessively fussy about the complexities of the plot while Clint the actor seems so indifferent that one wonders if he wishes he were somewhere else. The original Craig Thomas novel on which the film is based is actually an exciting and well-crafted piece of fiction (I know because I've read it) but this big-screen adaptation sadly misfires on all cylinders.
Former American pilot Mitchell Gant (Eastwood) has moved to a secluded corner of Alaska following his traumatic ordeal in a Vietnamese prison camp. He is approached for a highly sensitive mission when the Western governments learn that the Russians have developed a new, incredibly advanced supersonic fighter jet. Gant's extraordinarily dangerous mission involves going behind the Iron Curtain and stealing the new super plane from its impregnable hangar.
The film trundles along for 136 minutes, but it actually feels much longer. The first 100 minutes of that running time is particularly hard to endure, with an interminable series of cloak-and-dagger exchanges, tediously repetitive flashbacks, and the usual murky plot build-up that goes with he territory in these ubiquitous spy thrillers. The final half an hour or so is slightly more tolerable as it shows Gant piloting the jet out of Russia, pursued by a duplicate jet across the Arctic skies. The aerial special effects are rather unconvincing during this climactic showdown, but at least there's a little excitement (something markedly lacking from the rest of the movie). Maurica Jarre provides a good music score which is probably the best thing about the film. Firefox is a failure on most levels and is strictly one for Clint's most die-hard fans. -
rmax3048231 December 2004Suppose a specially trained Soviet pilot sneaked into this country illegally during the Cold War and, with the help of Communist spy rings, managed to impersonate an American officer, insinuate his way into Edwards AFB or Area 51, was responsible for the deaths of several American enlisted men, stole a top-secret American fighter which topped anything the Soviets could put in the air, and flew it to the USSR.
That's the plot, only vice versa. If you enjoyed the old black-and-white propaganda films about the success of the underground resistance in Nazi-occupied Europe, you'll probably like this one. Instead of Nazis we have the Russians. Instead of the Gestapo we have Soviet officers but the only difference is the uniform. The Soviets are grim, beady-eyed, humorless, and ruthless. They torture prisoners and are annoyed when the prisoner happens to die. They sacrifice their own people without blinking an eye.
Instead of the heroic French or Norwegian or Czech resistance fighters we have Jewish dissidents who help the hero. They sacrifice their lives for the cause. When trapped, they shoot themselves rather than take a chance of being beaten into giving away secret information.
Instead of Errol Flynn we have -- well -- we have Clint Eastwood in one of his lesser efforts. (Flynn would have been an improvement in the role.) Clint is a top ex-pilot suffering from PTS syndrome but projecting fear is not his forte. He projects it by closing his eyes and breathing a little harder than usual. When he's shocked at something, he registers the emotion by raising his brows and opening his eyes a little wider without changing his grim, determined expression.
Nobody else in the movie really counts, but I loved Freddie Jones in the part of the British operative who explains the plan to Clint. Jones is a burly, florid man with a bush of frizzly hair like the older Dylan Thomas (a fellow Welshman) crowning his occiput. He overacts outrageously, not only chewing the furniture, but ravishing it before swallowing it. He makes Charles Laughton look like the Sphynx. His bobbing head and mellifluous irony make up for what Clint forgot to bring to the party.
The arctic scenes are nice, but the special effects are pretty clumsy. They're so bad that whenever you try to get into the plot while the plane is airborn, the cheesiness jolts you back into the realization that you're just watching a movie.
The airplane, by the way, is SO advanced that it reads minds when it carries out orders. You want it to fire a missile? Just think, "Fire a missile." But -- get this -- the equipment can only read minds that THINK IN Russian. This raises a number of interesting questions about the equipment. How about if you have a Muscovite accent? Suppose you think more like a Ukrainean than an ethnic Russian? If you simply visualize the missile being fired (or whatever) in your right cerebral hemisphere, will the thing still go? Will it go if you think in the conditional -- "If I were to think that the missile should go, then it will go"? If a missile is fired and you think, "Go, Missile, Go!", does it fire a second missile? Suppose you happen to be fixing your makeup in the rear-view mirror when you think the missile should fire -- does it blow you up? Would it fly backwards for a dyslexic pilot? If you think, "Hey, I was only kidding!", does the missile abort?
This film certainly does. -
Mitchell Gant, a burned-out former air-force pilot, is given an impossible mission; to steal a prototype supersonic fighter-jet from inside a top-secret Russian military facility.
Based on the rather nifty cold-war classic novel by Craig Thomas, this is an intriguing and exciting action spy story from start to finish. Not only are the fighter-jet sequences dynamic and suspenseful but the first two-thirds of the movie, which detail Gant's every step from first contact to stepping into the cockpit are a nerve-shredding depiction of the USSR's Big Brother state, with autocratic KGB operatives everywhere. Whilst the premise takes some swallowing, the largely British and German cast lend tremendous weight and authenticity to the picture - in particular, Clarke (as a bad-tempered streetwise contact), Colley (as an overzealous KGB colonel who rumbles Gant's plan just too late to stop it), Lowitsch (as a cagey Russian general) and Hawthorne (as a dissident Jewish scientist) are all tremendous. Eastwood is good in the lead, and it's intriguing to watch him being pushed around and shouted at by a bunch of European actors. There is a good score by Maurice Jarre, fine photography by Bruce Surtees, spectacular locations and great sound effects. Forget Top Gun and its pretentious homoerotic fascistic xenophobia, this is a real supersonic adventure spy story. -
Draykov26 September 2006Firefox is a bit of a dichotomy in that it tries to be both an action man's salute to the Red, White and Blue and a thinking man's espionage piece. As one can probably guess, it's not very successful in either role, but it's not completely without merit either. It's certainly a more intelligent movie than some of its "patriotic" fluff piece contemporaries.
Mitchell Gant (Clint Eastwood) is the strong, silent type. Plagued by flashbacks of his time in Vietnam, he's a retired expert pilot living in seclusion until his government tracks him down to be pulled back into service for one last mission. He's "the only man for the job." That job, of course, being to sneak into Soviet Russia and steal the most advanced fighter plane known to man: Firefox...capable of feats that, even by today's standards, are a little far fetched (neural-linked fire control, for instance).
Major Gant is whisked off rather conveniently to Moscow where he poses as a known heroine smuggler (among other things). While some of the cat and mouse antics Major Gant and his contacts in Russia partake in are pretty satisfying, the suspension of disbelief isn't that successful. Ultimately, interesting scenes like Major Gant's confrontation with a KGB agent in the lavatory don't mean much because their set-up is, for the most part, improbable. And what 80s anti-communist film would be complete without some good ol' totalitarian bungling, bad Russian accents and some really bad "root for the home team" dialog (perpetrated mainly by David Huffman as Cpt. Buckholz)?
The last third of the film is probably the most enjoyable for most. It's the payoff where we actually get to see Major Gant's attempt to fulfill his mission: to steal Firefox. While the special effects are very dated, the in-cockpit sequences and circumstances might remind you of some contemporary Japanese space-fighter anime like "Macross Plus" or "Yukikaze." That is to say, it's enjoyable, suspenseful and makes you feel like the time you invested in the movie was worth it. -
bayouflier2 September 2005Though a big Eastwood fan, I have to take exception with the special effects of this movie. It was made five years after the original Star Wars, yet the flying sequences look like something out of the sixties. The aircraft move on planes and at angles that are just physically impossible. The cockpit instruments are a mixture of then present day, and even some very old technology. (The altimeter, which gets a lot of exposure before the glacier landing, is probably 1950's vintage. Additionally, the model of the Firefox is hardly believable as a futuristic fighter, even for the time. The story had potential, but I guess the budget was minimal.
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j_graves6827 July 20051982- the Cold War was at its first high in years with Ronald Reagan as President of the United States, not yielding or backing down from the Evil Galactic Soviet Empire that threw around its iron fist on the world's weakest thresholds. 1982 was also a year that began to bore pro-American and patriotic films such as "Uncommon Valor", "Missing in Action 1 & 2", "Red Dawn", and "Rambo", which seemed to all predicate the action-war genre of the early eighties box-office until the success of "Platoon".
The film had a good premise: retired American A.F. pilot Mitchell Gant (not the porn star, but Clint Eastwood) is recruited to steal a Soviet supersonic stealth fighter with a neural-controlled weapon system. Only he has to go into the country disguised and invisible in order to negotiate such a maneuver successfully. And Eastwood is burned-out and suffers from PTSD when enslaved by the NVA in the Vietnam War, so he has flashbacks due to it.
It's never established why Eastwood agrees to do this- did Uncle Sam bribe him, or was it for personal reasons of patriotism and nationalism? We are never sure. But oh well. When entering the Soviet Union, we see the oppressed, un-exaggerated totalitarian state it is (I went there a few years after this film came out, and trust me, it ain't a joke) for about an hour. While there, he is asked repeatedly for "his papers", so much that Clint goes bat-sh*t and kills one of the agents. Well, that's not really why, but still, you'd feel like it after being asked for the 18th time there in less than 24 hours. His accomplice played by Warren Clarke (looking much like a blond Oliver Reed) hooks him up with some dissident Jewish scientists who have engineered the MiG-31 and are helping him steal it or "give it a closer inspection" (I still love that line to this day). So when Eastwood is airborne, he is to fly north to the Arctic- refuel- and then land in either England or Alaska. But the other prototype of the MiG-31 (Firefox) is out to shoot him down.
When I first saw this, I was 10 years old and quite ahead of my time (while my friends were playing Pac-Man and watching "Solid Gold"). Had my dad not told me a gist of the plot, I would've been bored. And Eastwood does have a tendency to allow his scenes to drag (i.e.: "Million Dollar Baby", "Unforgiven", "Mystic River"). We didn't need all of the plotting of the evil galactic Soviet generals scene after scene after scene. I would given this movie a higher rating if that were trimmed a little. I'm not going to bash the F/X either: this was 1982- not 2002 where there's CGI coming off the screen. So back then, these effects were cutting-edge, and I still like to watch the final dogfight (even though it's campy to most). I would be more critical to it if they were to use an American plane with a red star emblazoned on it instead.
But the premise was always something THEY would do to US since we were pioneering military technology back in the Cold War. Still worth a watch. -
raisincain15 December 2000This is a great movie to watch if you're interested in hokey, unrealistic junk. Old Clint is indestructible, yet kills everyone else with just a single shot. The acting is horrible throughout, which gives it something in common with the writing and directing. The special effects are the worst I've ever seen; looks like someone holding a model airplane on a fishing pole.
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Hey_Sweden5 November 2017Like Burt Lancaster before him, veteran star Clint Eastwood would often subscribe to that "one for the studio, one for me" policy. The same year that he made the more low key and personal "Honkytonk Man", he made this fairly decent espionage thriller, based on the novel by Craig Thomas. Clint also directs & produces, and stars as Mitchell Gant, a burnt-out former soldier / P.O.W. haunted by his Vietnam War experiences. He's recruited for an extremely risky mission: go behind enemy lines in Moscow, and steal the Soviets' cutting-edge new fighting plane out from under their noses. Needless to say, the mission doesn't always go smoothly.
The movie is overlong, and for a while it's just not as tense (or involving) as it could and should be. But it's still an entertaining story, reasonably well told, with Clint in fine form. It really picks up once the Firefox is in the air. Then it gets pretty exciting, despite the presence of some dodgy effects. The location shooting, widescreen photography (by frequent Clint collaborator Bruce Surtees), and music (by Maurice Jarre) are all first rate.
The real value with "Firefox" lies in an exemplary supporting cast. Freddie Jones may be rather eccentric, but he's consistently amusing in the part of a key exposition provider. Familiar faces such as Ronald Lacey & Wolf Kahler (both from "Raiders of the Lost Ark"), Kenneth Colley (Admiral Piett in two of the "Star Wars" movies), Nigel Hawthorne ("The Madness of King George"), David Huffman ("Blood Beach"), Dimitra Arliss ("The Sting"), and Stefan Schnabel ("The 27th Day") help to make the material more engrossing than it might have been in less capable hands. Keep your eyes peeled for John "Cliff Clavin" Ratzenberger in a small role as one of the men from the submarine.
This may not be a great film, by any means, but this viewer thinks that it shows its audience a good enough time.
Seven out of 10. -
Matthew_Capitano16 June 2015Clunk Eastwad was never an actor and his drab appearance in this stained toilet paper is further proof of that fact.
The Government needs help in foiling some Bad Guys, so of course NO ONE ELSE is capable of carrying out a covert mission which involves flying a Russian jet than an old retired pilot jogging out in the sticks. Enter Eastwad.
After a small eternity of eternally mundane events such as Eastwad trying to shake foreign spies by walking down corridors, hanging around in a train station toilet, and then walking and hanging around some more, we finally get to see the plane. Gee, I wonder if Clunk will be able to successfully fly it to the free world?
Totally unexciting and dramatically anemic. Miss this flight on purpose. -
TOMASBBloodhound12 September 2004Every big star makes a few films like this one. Firefox is a film that many will declare is for "Eastwood fans only". That is probably an accurate statement.
Looking at Firefox, you can see a film that suffers from awkward pacing, poor effects by today's standards, and some rather hammy performances by some of the supporting cast. Still, I find myself in the precarious position of having to recommend this film to all of you.
Firefox is not by any means a classic. It is however a nice snap-shot of a society so paranoid that its very existence almost suffocated its citizens. I am of course talking about the most murderous regime in modern history. The USSR. If anyone doubts this, please keep in mind that Stalin alone is credited with nearly 3X as many murders during his watch as Hitler.
The first hour or so of this film has Clint Eastwood sneaking around and being led around the Soviet Union by a network of underground spies. They are trying to get him out to a top-secret air base so he can steal a prototype of the most advanced fighter jet ever built before the Soviets can mass-produce it. Most viewers seem to find this first hour pretty boring, and maybe they are right. Other than Clint walking through parks, hastily jumping on trains, and hitching rides in delivery trucks, not much happens. I don't think the first hour is a total waste, though. In it, we get an incredible feel for just how oppressive the USSR was back then. At almost every turn there are slimy KGB agents in cheap leather jackets jumping out and demanding "papers" from anybody unlucky enough to be out in public at that time. I lost count of how many times people were forced to show their "papers" in that first hour. The paranoia of the Soviet government is well on display in these scenes.
Once Clint gets to the plane, the movie takes off: literally. Clint is then forced to fly the plane out of Soviet air space and find a re-fueling spot in the Arctic Ocean where a US sub will be waiting for him. Even though this plane is impossible to detect on radar, it's still a difficult task to avoid all the other Soviet aircraft and ships. Clint also gets into a dogfight with another Firefox which is sent up after him. Since the effects involving these planes look dated, you have to suspend your disbelief and just sit back and enjoy it all as best you can.
I liked most of the acting in this film. Freddie Jones was over-the-top, though. Clint was about as timid as I've ever seen him, but he was supposed to be. His character suffers from constant flashbacks of his Vietnam days where he had been shot down and held prisoner for a while. You have to wonder why such an unbalanced man would be chosen for such an important mission, but they at least try to explain that early on. It seems that the Air Force believes Clint's condition only occurs when he's on the ground, but we find that not to be the case once he's in the dogfight with a more experienced Soviet Col.
Warren Clarke (who you might remember as the big dumb lug in Alex's gang in A Clockwork Orange) is outstanding as the primary underground spy who helps Clint get where he needs to go. I also loved that dirty old Soviet "First Secretary" who threatens Clint once he steals the plane. Those hapless individuals who played the Jewish scientists at the air base were very good in their roles, also.
If you love Eastwood and haven't seen this film, please do. If you don't really care about him but want to take a closer look at the old USSR, this will work for you, too.
I'll give it 8 of 10 stars.
Clint, you should have killed that Soviet Col. when you had the chance in the locker room!!!!
So sayeth the Hound. -
So we all know Clint for his westerns, but you should also know him for his political thrillers. 'Firefox' was one of his first political thrillers in the midst of some tough cop/crime action flicks and stupid crap involving an orangutan. Naturally it was based on a novel of the same name which I've never heard of or read, so I am unable to compare the two.
The plot: Put simply, Major Mitchell Gant (Clint) is a Nam veteran who can fly anything and can also speak Russian (thanks to his Russian mother). He is brought back into action on a joint Anglo-American mission to steal a highly advanced Russian jet fighter (code name Firefox) which can hit mach 6, is invisible to radar, and can fire missiles controlled by the pilots mind. He is dropped into Russia undercover. He must reach and secure the jet fighter with the help of Russian dissidents. However, the KGB are aware of his presence and are hot on his heels. Yep, its a fictional cold war thriller.
The film is kinda split into two halves really, the first part follows Gant as he enters the Soviet Union, meets up with Soviet dissidents, and moves from place to place trying to stay one step ahead of the KGB. The second part follows Gant piloting the Firefox jet as he tries to evade Russian attempts to bring him down whilst trying to flee Russian airspace.
For the most part the first half of the film in Russia is slow moving but with solid tension. The film wasn't actually shot in Russia due to actual American-Russian cold war unease so Austria stood in for locations. This is made abundantly clear in a shot showing Gant walking past Red Square in Moscow; its a horrendously obvious and amusing bluescreen shot. It is also kinda amusing watching Clint in this role because if anyone stood out from the crowd as a possible US spy in Moscow, it would be Gant. The man is clearly on the ropes every time he speaks to an official. He's twitchy, sweating, his eyes are darting about the place, he just looks worried. Its so stupid how no Russian official ever pulls him in for further questioning.
I can't deny it is quite exciting to watch Gant evade the KGB one scene after another. The sequence where Gant is trying to leave a subway station quickly before a killed guard is discovered is very good. The Russian dissidents were slightly over the top though I thought, a bit too gruff and merciless, but well acted. They also came across as too obvious for my liking, basically everyone looks so damn guilty in this film. At times it did feel like you were watching a film set in Nazi Germany, but I'm assuming its relatively accurate for the period. Seems very odd that people had to show their ID papers constantly, almost everywhere, but hey it was effective.
I do think the film would have been even more effective if all Russian characters had spoken in Russian with English subs, ditto for the Americans. Although listening to Clint speak Russian did sound rather off, an understandably difficult task. I'm still not entirely sure if Gant was supposed to be talking Russian (when speaking English) when communicating with various Russian dissidents at certain points in the film. Don't think so but its possible.
The second half of the movie sees Gant stealing the Firefox jet from within a Bond-esque Russian military base complete with white coat scientists who get brutally gunned down after exposing themselves as dissidents. The whole sequence isn't quite as thrilling as Bond but instead quite dark and sobering. The jet itself is a very impressive full scale model which looks a bit like the Lockheed Blackbird aircraft. Whilst the air suit Gant wears is a very cool sexy and futuristic all black affair with slick helmet and visor. All the interior cockpit shots and sequences do look very authentic and of course very cool. The constant light and cloud reflections zipping off Gant's visor (along with the cockpit interior) does sell the illusion perfectly.
The exterior sequences for the aircraft (and dogfight sequence) were filmed using a new technique from John Dykstra called 'reverse bluescreen'. This essentially enabled the shiny black model aircraft to appear to be flying against clear blue skies and glimmering white snow without bluescreen leakage on the model. This does work but naturally things have moved on somewhat since 1982 so by today's standards it still all looks a bit hokey. Some shots do look good, the flyby effect on land and sea is quite nice as the jet zooms overhead. The odd model shot does look pretty sweet but in all honesty a lot of it looks very fake. The more elaborate the aerial manoeuvre, the more fake looking unfortunately.
All in all this is definitely a movie of two halves (have I mentioned that?). The first half is a far more serious affair of infiltration and espionage. Its dark tense and engaging despite how simplistic it all is. On the other hand the second half becomes much more of an action movie with a more jingoistic vibe. Eastwood certainly seems to feel more at home when in the cockpit of an ultra cool armoured killing machine being an all American action hero (who somehow forgets about rear firing missiles despite being the best of the best). Yes in all honesty Eastwood probably wasn't the best choice for the main role here (I know he gave himself the role). He's as wooden as a very wrinkled narrow piece of wood and is clearly outdone by his Russian dissident costar (Warren Clarke), and pretty much all of the Russian military cast.
A good solid reliable Eastwood film which ironically would probably have been much better if Eastwood wasn't in the leading role. He is easily the weakest element in his own movie.
6.5/10 -
Chase_Witherspoon25 January 2011Bland Eastwood vehicle finds big Clint undercover at a Russian airforce facility where he plans to steal the top secret fighter jet superior to anything else in operation and capable of immense destruction in the wrong hands. Aided by avionics scientists forcibly recruited to work on the project (Hawthorne, Lacey, Arliss in particular), Eastwood manages to stage a daring theft and is then pursued by the Russians desperate to destroy the invention before its secrets can be revealed to the allies.
Eastwood's attempt at a cold war espionage flick doesn't contain enough narrative content to remain cogent - in point of fact, a good half an hour is spent with Clint going super-sonic speed in the sky, while the Russians bumble about chasing red herrings and ruminating on the impact of their loss. Why Eastwood's character would be portrayed as an unbalanced Vietnam veteran who suffers from flashbacks is a major credibility issue when you consider he's been headhunted for this politically sensitive mission. But plot holes aside, the aerial acrobatics aren't bad, particularly his dogfight with the Russian's top flight commander in the film's long awaited climax.
Hawthorne takes leave from his Sir Humphrey Appleby persona to play a political prisoner essentially enslaved to build the diabolical weapon, while Colley is starch-straight as a stereotypical Russian uniform. David Huffman also has a primary role in one of his last films before he was tragically murdered. But interesting cast aside, the script is tired and clichéd and Eastwood's direction lacks his usual lustre. Overlong and underwhelming.