Bovie Movie

The wealthy designer of the world’s first fully computer-automated jetliner summarily fires one of his engineers, a disgruntled computer hacker. In retaliation, the engineer “kidnaps” the high tech jetliner from a hidden location on the ground, and threatens to destroy the plane during its maiden flight. The lives of the passengers, which include a prominent politician and his daughter, rests in the hands of a troubled ex-war hero. First broadcast on Spanish television in an R-rated version in October of 2002, Cabin Pressure “officially” premiered on November 15, 2002, courtesy of the American PAX network.

An undercover CIA agent must fight for his life when his cover is blown during a heated assignment in this action entry starring martial arts mainstay Steven Seagal. CIA agent Jonathan Cold (Seagal) is attempting to infiltrate a group of well-known arms dealers when his former student is captured and his cover is blown. Now, with little time to spare before the wrathful weapons dealers sell a powerful nuclear bomb to an Eastern European terrorist cell, Agent Cold must race to save his former student while simultaneously stopping the bomb from falling into the wrong hands.

The can’t-miss teaming of Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn is squandered on a clumsy, illogical romantic melodrama. Running across her old boyfriend Gibson at a Wisconsin gas station, Hawn is astounded that he seems not to recognize her. How could she have known that Gibson was put into the Witness Relocation Program after testifying against a homicidal mob boss (say, don’t they usually alter your appearance when they put you in that program?) Curious over Gibson’s furtive behavior, Hawn unknowingly sets herself up as a target for the bad guys. The whole affairs culminates in an after-hours showdown at a zoo (a plot device vastly improved upon in the 1996 Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle Eraser). While Bird on a Wire admittedly has its moments of enjoyment, most of the film is on a par with Gibson’s embarrassing, homophobic scene with a pair of epicine hairdressers. And whoever heard of the Chinatown section of Racine, Wisconsin?

While fleeing the wrath of San Francisco’s Chinese mob, a fighter (Mark Dacasos) ends up taking a dread-lock-wearing writer (Kadeem Hardison) hostage and racing towards the safety of L. A. Along the way, the two must fight their way through a gauntlet of determined and crafty gang members, each one hell bent on destroying the two. Furious and fast paced, this direct-to-video martial arts actioner comes highly recommended by genre aficionadas.