After two outings pounding Middle East dictators, indefatigable fighter pilot Chappy Sinclair takes on a WWII Nazi running cocaine out of South America in ACES: IRON EAGLE III, a fitfully entertaining, cartoonish action-adventure.
The fade-in finds Chappy (Louis Gossett Jr.) flying in an airshow of war-vintage fighters with aces from England (Christopher Cazanove), Germany (Horst Buchholz) and Japan (Sonny Chiba). After the show, Chappy gets word that an old friend has been killed in a crash while flying a shipment of coke
in an Air Force jet. Going to his friend's apartment in search of answers, he discovers his friend's sister, Anna (Rachel McLish), who's been hiding out there after escaping from Nazi war criminal turned South American cocaine tycoon Kleiss (Paul Freeman, most famous for playing virtually the same
character in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK). Kleiss has been holding Anna hostage to force her brother to fly the coke into the US. As soon as she can catch her breath, she intends to return and join rebel forces planning to attack Kleiss's compound.
Chappy promptly volunteers to help her, also enlisting his squadron of aging aces. The manager of the airshow (Fred Dalton Thompson) puts up token resistance to the use of his planes before outfitting them with superchargers, rocket launchers and laser tracking gear. To make the ethnic mix
complete, a street-smart ghetto kid (Phill Lewis) stows away for the fight after helping Anna escape from some bad guys. Despite being grossly outgunned and outmanned, Chappy and his "boys" succeed in their mission and get away with only one casualty (Chiba, who goes down, kamakazi-style, taking a
loaded cocaine transport plane with him) before adjourning to Chappy's backyard for a nice barbecue dinner.
ACES is one of those old-fashioned Saturday matinee movies they just don't make anymore, and it's all too easy to see why. For starters, the age of these aces would put WWII sometime between Korea and Vietnam, making it painfully obvious that ACES is someone's demented idea of an updated period
film. It would be easy to believe a team of war heroes getting together shortly after the war to track down escaped Nazi war criminals in South America, but, evidently fearful of not making contact with today's jaded audiences, the producers opted for a modern mishmash that adds cocaine dealing to
Nazi sins and throws in a ghetto kid for no particular reason except to sell tickets to other ghetto kids. And this all pales next to the glaring absurdity of WWII-era rust buckets getting into dogfights with state-of-the-art jets at the film's climax--and winning. The air of cinematic
schizophrenia permeating the screenplay (by Kevin Elders, who also contributed to the two previous EAGLE outings) results in a film that is too silly to take seriously yet too solemn to enjoy as pure escapist froth.
Though hobbled by its script, however, ACES almost soars on the strength of its sterling cast and muscular direction. Gossett is as classy as ever, giving the old-fashioned virtues his character represents a simple dignity, conviction and purity. Veteran action star Buchholz brings vim and vigor
to his role as a reformed Nazi sworn to redeem himself in battle with his unreformed foe. Cazanove brings back the cheerio spirit of the British Empire in the role they probably couldn't afford to get Roger Moore to play.
Martial arts veteran Chiba goes for Toshiro Mifune grandeur and humanity in his performance and is remarkably affecting. Freeman, of course, is dependably oily as the ultra-villain, though he has surprisingly little screen time for a criminal mastermind. Among the younger cast members, bodybuilder
McLish is a true discovery, both sexy and likable enough on her own terms to escape being dubbed a female Schwarzenegger, though that is the obvious pigeonhole. In the thankless "ghetto kid" role, Lewis is relaxed, funny and capable.
Keeping the action cooking with undue fuss, director John Glen is also a veteran, having spent an unwholesome chunk of his career as a key player in the James Bond series, leading up to the director role on the last half-dozen or so outings. Needless to say, this is the kind of film he can do in
his sleep. And if someone had thought to nudge him awake during the story sessions, ACES might have been aces all around. (Violence, profanity.) leave a comment
