DANGER ZONE is just another average adventure involving CIA renegades, African rebels, and nuclear weapon conspirators. With plot twists that numb the mind more often than they tease the brain, this sweaty action opus stirs explosions, karate flare-ups, jeep chases, train attacks, and
genocide into a bubbling broth of mediocrity.
Rick Morgan (Billy Zane), an American engineer in charge of an East African mining project, soon rues the arrival of old buddy Jim Scott (Robert Downey Jr.), because Scott is transporting barrels he claims contain toxic waste. They really hold plutonium. As Morgan chastises Scott, a North Korean
operative, Chang (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), attacks Morgan's work site with heavy artillery. In the aftermath, entire villages are decimated, apparently by exposure to Scott's derelict waste. Former CIA spook Scott fades into the jungle, but Morgan is branded a pariah and booted out of his beloved
Africa.
Dupont (Ron Silver), the US ministerial consultant to Zambesi, offers Morgan the chance to redeem himself by locating more barrels that the African military government couldn't find. Morgan accepts, but he resents his assigned partner, Kim Woods (Lisa Collins), a scientist who packs a Geiger
counter. Unwilling to trust each other initially, Morgan and Kim discover they are pawns of the double-dealing Dupont, who is seeking plutonium canisters that he and Chang plan to auction. Their search for nuclear bomb material leads Morgan and Kim to wily survivor Scott at his rebel stronghold.
Scott reveals that the oppressive regime, not chemical pollutants, wiped out the tribal populace of some villages for political purposes.
After an attack on Scott's rebel outpost leaves him dead and other loyalists slain, Morgan and Kim return to the city, where they tangle with Dupont, who is fatally double-crossed by Chang. The final confrontation occurs on a hurtling train, as renegade patriots try to free a kidnapped Kim and
intercept the coveted plutonium. After the train car holding the plutonium is diverted with Morgan now aboard, Morgan helps a CIA helicopter carry off the nuke-material container. When Chang tosses Kim in the river, Morgan dives in to rescue her. But, before he takes the plunge, Morgan pushes
Chang into the flames--just before the train explodes. Morgan, Kim, and the rebels emerge victorious.
Choking on enough subplots for a video store full of B-action flicks, DANGER ZONE mistakes plot quantity for quality. Since the direction is predictable, the responsibility to entertain the audience falls on the broad shoulders of stuntmen and special effects experts. When manly men bare their
teeth at one another or blast each other to smithereens, all is right with DANGER ZONE. However, its artistic muscle tone grows more arthritic during dramatic scenes, especially the stiff romantic volleys between Zane and Collins, who offer the high school equivalent of THE AFRICAN QUEEN (1951).
(Graphic violence, nudity, profanity, substance abuse.) leave a comment
