Mach 2 (2001)

Instant Favorite.

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Just awful, awful, awful. Quite frankly the worst film I've ever seen and I don't even want to waste my time on explaining why. It's almost worth watching just to allow yourself to vent some anger as you shout at the screen at how pathetic and unbelievable this film is.If you are foolish enough to watch then prepare to spend a lot of time sighing and cringing. There is artistic licence and then there is just plain stupid and unbelievable. The amount of artistic licence is quite frankly insulting to the viewer.Then I suppose I should come on to the acting. Well again, to call it acting is an insult to the professionals out there.

I enjoyed watching this film as it gave me great pleasure in righteously ripping it to shreds with my fellow viewers. This movie doesn't need a spoiler alert as it is already spoiled.The plot is simplistic in that a US senator travels to Balkans on a Concorde aeroplane and he possesses a computer disk implicating the vice-president in a plot to expand the war the senator is trying to mediate in so that that the US can sell arms to both side and thus keep the USA economy going. The bad ole secret service hijack the plane under the pretence of being a Balkan splinter group, steal the disks, kill the crew and radio the authorities it has a nuclear bomb on board then shoot the radio so that when they parachute to safety (But are then suddenly chased and killed by unknown attackers)the US navy without even asking the French send up fighters to try shoot it down over the French Alps.Enter the hero who's name I cannot be bothered to recall. He and his pretty companions go about trying to get the plane back down, and one pretty thing having been given a radio kit as a present when a teenager promptly repairs the complex communication system on the Concorde with a Swiss army knife. Then the US navy F-14s take off with empty missile racks, but damage with missiles the Concorde fuel tanks located in its extreme tail. At this point communications are restored and the F-14 pilot who probably had never even seen a concord cockpit gives the hero a switch by switch briefing on how to control remaining fuel and engines. All this time the Concorde has been visible on the radar at both Dulles and Le Bourget simultaneously whilst it was mid Atlantic. The French and American Air Traffic can both seem to talk to the aircraft at the same time. Enter the stereotype French disheveled Gaulloies smoking ex navy pilot controller who then talks the hero to land, lever by lever, even telling how much flap to lower which is strange as Concorde doesn't use flaps, but the hero manages to lower the wheels and the droop nose unaided on finals but mysteriously raises it before ploughing into the crash barrier. US registered ambulance then take away the injured whilst several US registered light aircraft sit on the apron, the backdrop view enhanced by the famous snow capped mountains that surround Paris. There is more.............Watch for WowII!

With a stream of famous names and faces one would think that this would be a great film. Having watched this garbage I have come to the conclusion that none of the actors actually read the script before shooting began. Cliché after cliché after cliché. This produces wooden performances from some names that should know better.I am sure their accountants were happy when they paid their cheques into the bank, but anyone who bought/rented this on DVD will feel that their money could have been better spent on a tin of paint. They could have occupied themselves watching the paint dry and would have felt more fulfilled.DVD and obscure cable/satellite channels will use this trash to fill out their schedules.My advice ... buy the paint. At least you get a choice of colour.

The acting by Brian Bosworth, Shannon Whirry, Ciff Robertson and Michael Dorn was pretty solid despite the script they had to work with.Steve Latshaw wrote a very pedestrian script filled with weak clichés and one liners. The dialogue is only part of what brought this film down.The direction was horrid. Fred Olen Ray, who had directed such classics as Vampire Vixens from Venus and Bikini Drive In, does a horrid job directing this movie. The cuts, the angles, the closeups - everything he did was pedestrian. The music, the sound editing, everything was bad.If it wasn't for some solid acting from a few select cast members this wouldn't be worth the time. As is, it is a fair little action flick. Just don't expect much. At all ...