Flight of the Intruder
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| Flight of the Intruder | |
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| Directed by | John Milius |
| Produced by | Brian Frankish |
| Written by | Robert Dillon David Shaber |
| Starring | Danny Glover Willem Dafoe Brad Johnson |
| Music by | Basil Poledouris |
| Cinematography | Fred J. Koenekamp |
| Editing by | Steve Mirkovich Carroll Timothy O'Meara Peck Prior |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Release date(s) | 1991 |
| Running time | 115 min. |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Flight of the Intruder is a 1991 film directed by John Milius, which is based on the novel of the same name by A-6 Intruder pilot Stephen Coonts. The film stars Danny Glover as Commander Frank 'Dooke' Camparelli, Willem Dafoe as Lieutenant Commander Virgil 'Tiger' Cole, and Brad Johnson as Lieutenant Jake 'Cool Hand' Grafton.
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[edit] Plot
Flight of the Intruder centers on U.S. Navy Lieutenant Grafton, who flies an A-6 Intruder and becomes increasingly disillusioned with political controls imposed on his bombing missions of North Vietnam after his bombardier/navigator is killed during a night-time raid. Other planes from Grafton's aircraft carrier are being shot down by surface-to-air missiles which are stockpiled in the city of Hanoi, off-limits to retaliatory bombing raids. With Cole as bombardier/navigator, Grafton plans a renegade attack on "SAM City", a park in the center of Hanoi where the missiles are stored.
The ongoing battle between American attack planes and North Vietnamese anti-aircraft weaponry (ranging from sophisticated radar-guided anti-aircraft missiles and jet interceptors to a peasant with a bolt-action rifle firing blindly into the sky) is a prominent theme in both the book and movie, with the threat of being shot down by such weapons being a constant concern for the pilots, who use various means to defend themselves (flying at low altitude, using electronic countermeasures and chaff, and actively attacking the anti-aircraft weapons)
The renegade mission of Grafton and Cole was totally dismissed as the President of the United States was planning and put into motion the Linebacker II mission, which involved full unrestricted daylight bombing of North Vietnam. The carrier's Intruders and A-7 Corsair IIs were launched the next day. Even though Grafton and Cole were grounded, they flew another Intruder mission to rescue their Commanding Officer (CO). They had to parachute into enemy territory and reached their CO. Both Grafton and his CO were finally rescued by a "Jolly Green Giant" helicopter.
[edit] Production notes
Flight of the Intruder was filmed partly on the USS Independence (CV-62). It went out for two weeks of filming in November of 1989. The film crew kept the ship's fire party busy with numerous small electrical fires started with their lighting equipment.
Former US Senator (and later Presidential candidate) Fred Thompson played a major speaking part during the court-martial sequence of the film, portraying a Captain in the Navy Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps. Ed O'Neill was originally cast in the movie but when the movie was screened for test audiences, they laughed at him, as they all perceived him as his Married With Children character. The director recast his character and reshot those scenes.
The DVD release contains a probable unintentional mistake during its 'play' menu. A lone F-14 Tomcat aircraft is shown next to the movie title on the DVD menu instead of an A-6 Intruder. While the F-14 fighter aircraft did fly on its maiden cruise just prior to the fall of South Vietnam, the single aircraft portrayed is certainly not the A-6 Intruder bomber aircraft that the movie title and story is based upon.
Biographer Joe Hyams titled his 1991 book on the World War II experiences of President George H. W. Bush Flight of the Avenger, apparently as a play on the title of Stephen Coonts' novel and this film; the TBM Avenger torpedo bomber that Bush flew was also built by Grumman like the A6 Intruder, and had a roughly equivalent mission.
[edit] Aircraft
The film features U.S. Air Force A-1 "Sandy" Skyraiders and a HH-3 "Jolly Green Giant" rescue helicopter in various action sequences, with brief appearances of Navy aircraft including the A-7 Corsair, C-2 Greyhound and the F-4 Phantom II, as well as a North Vietnamese MiG-17.
Two early variants of the A-6 Intruder are featured in the movie, the A-6A and the A-6B. The A-6A is a conventional bomber and the A-6B carried specialized electronics and weapons for SEAD missions (the Navy called this "Iron Hand", the Air Force called it "Wild Weasel".)
[edit] Differences from book
The movie featured various changes to many minor characters from the book, changing some and merging others. Boxman, for example, was a bombardier-navigator in the book and a pilot in the film. Razor's callsign was derived from his bushy mustache in the book and from looking too young to shave in the film. Big Augie was African-American in the book and white in the film. Cowboy Parker was the squadron operations officer (third in command) in the book and executive officer (second in command) in the film.
The Hanoi Raid launched by Jake and Tiger Cole in the movie was aimed at a stockpile of surface-to-air missiles in downtown Hanoi. In the book, their target was the National Assembly building, to which they failed to inflict any real damage.
Tiger Cole is killed in the climax of the movie, while in the book he is successfully rescued along with Jake.
The carrier is called the Shiloh in the book. In the film, it's the USS Indepedence.
[edit] Popular music
The movie features many 1950s and 1960 pop and rock n' roll music. Dafoe and Johnson sing Petula Clark's notable 1964 music hit "Downtown" on their way back from the prohibited bombing run on a Hanoi SAM missile depot exhilarated from their success.
