FINAL MISSION is one of those periodic machismo-laced throwbacks to a simpler patriotic time--like TOP GUN, it's actually nostalgic about war. Jazzed up with splendid aerial sequences, this paranoid thriller is otherwise flaccidly directed.
Flying high in a controlled lab environment, test pilots experience "hyper-reality" through government-sponsored experiments with drug-induced brain stimulation. While buzzing past the delta plane of Tom "Outlaw" Waters (Billy Wirth), David "Hound Dog" Matthews (Tim Moran) unexpectedly crashes
into a canyon wall. A report to Colonel Anderson (Steve Railsback ) blames the crash on pilot error--but how to explain all the nightmares and headaches experienced by the navigators in Anderson's program? After Outlaw and fellow pilot Daniel "Cowboy" Riley become suspicious about side-effects of
the drug experiments, Outlaw launches a clandestine investigation into the hyper-reality program; he's derailed by the seductive Caitlin Cole (Elizabeth Gracen) who works for the government unbeknownst to him. Meanwhile, another pilot swan-dives to his death.
After Anderson argues with his superior officer, General Breslaw (Corbin Bersen), about the future viability of the fighter plane program, the colonel is removed from the top secret project and then found shot to death. Outlaw, who's wrestling with self-destructive visions in his dreams, eludes
an attempted assassination during a car pursuit. When Outlaw manages to penetrate the "Final Mission" code, a signal that turns the drug-addled pilots into kamikazes, Caitlin betrays him to the general. In the finale, with both men whizzing through the wild blue yonder, Breslaw issues coded
commands to Outlaw, who realizes that crazed Gen. Breslaw is actually planning to gun down the Secretary of Defense for trying to cut his appropriations. Caitlin intervenes to stop the assassination. When Breslaw feeds Outlaw the kamikaze code, the brainwashed pilot manages to resist. Instead of
crashing his aircraft into the Defense Secretary's jet, Outlaw fires on Breslaw.
Awash in confusing exposition, the viewer of FINAL MISSION is never on the edge of his seat; he's sunk back in a plot-heavy fog about hyper-reality as imagined by the Hemlock Society. Perhaps the only way to enliven this tedious military conspiracy flick would be to reshoot it with Dr. Jack
Kervorkian as General Breslaw. The poorly constructed screenplay fails to create audience sympathy for Outlaw, who remains a cipher. Monotonously acted and mechanically directed, FINAL MISSION leaves action fans up in the air. (Violence, nudity, extreme profanity, adult situations.) leave a comment
