Skyjacked (1972)

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Skyjacked (1972) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Captain O'Hara (Charlton Heston) is on your typical flight when someone notices a bomb threat has been written on a mirror inside the bathroom. The pilot decides to follow the wishes of the unknown bomber and head the plane towards Alaska but soon the bomber identifies himself as a former soldier (James Brolin) who wants revenge against his country who he feels let him down.SKYJACKED is a fairly entertaining entry in the disaster genre, although there's no question that it doesn't really stand above the countless others out there. It's an interesting movie because it came slightly after AIRPORT, which was about a plane full of people with a bomber on board and it was a few years before AIRPORT 1975, which featured Heston and a plane that gets hit by another. There's a subplot here where the large plane comes close to colliding with a smaller one so all three films certainly share a lot of similarities.For the most part this is an entertaining film, although I think it goes on a tad bit too far and takes a little too long in getting going. It's pretty obvious from the word go who the bomber is going to be but the film tries to milk it as a mystery. This works for a little while but there comes a point where it's obvious yet the film still tries to milk the mystery. The finale of the film also manages to be a letdown but I'm going to avoid spoilers so I won't ruin it for those who haven't seen it. The film could have ended in countless ways but what's here wasn't all that entertaining or fulfilling. I haven't read the novel that the film is based on so I'm not sure if it's the same. Another problem with the film are some extremely silly and melodramatic flashback sequences that really kills whatever drama the film has built up.There are some fun performances here including Heston who plays it rather straight and serious. He's certainly good in the film and even Brolin comes across good in his psychotic role. He's actually much better here than he would be in THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, another picture that required him to play crazy. The supporting cast includes nice performances from Yvette Mimieux, Claude Atkins, Jeanne Crain and Roosevelt Grier who steals the film with his fun natured performance.SKYJACKED features some very good cinematography and the action scenes contain a decent amount of drama but there's no doubt that this falls well short of being among the genre's best films. If you like disaster movies it's certainly worth watching but only after you've seen some of the better options in the genre.

Commercial airliner piloted by Charlton Heston is hijacked by someone claiming to have a bomb. Whether you consider it a knockoff of Airport or not, it's very much in the same vein as that film and its sequels. I see IMDb gives away the identity of the hijacker in their summary which is weird since the first 40 minutes of the movie is about that mystery. No spoilers here though.Full of the stereotypical cast you might expect from an Airport movie: the pilot and stewardess who used to have a thing (Charlton Heston, Yvette Mimieux), aging stars (Walter Pidgeon, Jeanne Crain), up-and-coming youngsters (Susan Dey and future Spider-Man Nicholas Hammond), professional athlete (Rosie Greer), pregnant lady (Mariette Hartley), and a troubled soldier (James Brolin). The tension aboard the plane is pretty good but the dated flashback sequences are silly. Not bad of its type. First 45 minutes or so is best. If you like the Airport movies you'll surely like this.

Another Seventies Disaster, a Disaster Movie that Viewers Today Love to Poke Fun and some even call these Things Camp Classics. But in 1972 it was a Stinker and no Amount of Glossing Over its Inanities could make it anything more than a Boring Bunch of Passengers on board a Commercial Flight with a Former Military Pilot hoping to keep Control of "His" Airplane from a Nutjob Determined to Fill Two Hours of Screen Time with Clichéd Scene Chewing among the Clichéd People that Populate these Things.Bland, Hardly Exciting Waste of Time Watching Blurry Flashbacks that Attempt to Add Weight to the Proceedings and come off as nothing more than Sopa Opera Filler. There isn't an Interesting Character Aboard of the 100 Souls and the Tension is too Choreographed and Badly Edited to Amount to Much. This is Anything but Sure Handed Filmmaking. What's with all the Zooms to the Lipstick Counter, wouldn't One be Enough. The Movie has got no Heart and no Intrigue and Yes, it may be Laughable but at the Expense of Your Wasted Time and Trying to get Any Fun from this is Futile. It is just Plain Bad from the Awkward Beginning to the Overly Staged Ending.

I stumbled on this movie on TCM one slow afternoon and was surprised I never heard of it with so many big names in the cast. I can see why the director, John Guillermin, didn't do anything substantial after this lame duck. Even the most rudimentary aviation credibility is lost in this film, from the ridiculous flying skills obviously exaggerated for the movie, to the laughable aviation radio-speak, and finally the cockpit not even close to resembling anything like a Boeing 707.The plot is full of holes large enough to fly a 707 through. Like the Soviet fighters didn't know the airliner was 'civilian' until Charlton Heston drops the landing gear. Huh? Does anyone know how many miles it is from Anchorage to Moscow? Almost 4500! And I didn't even know James Brolin could over-act to this degree. I could go on and on but won't.My tolerance for 1970's disaster movies is fairly high but this movie is totally intolerable to the point of laughable. And what's with the flashbacks?! Did the script mandate all the profanity and silly dialogue? It's almost as though the director wanted to make "an adult film" and used profanity to prove the point.