A loud, blatant and courageous 80s action adventure, which sees Louis Gossett Jr. as a veteran combat pilot who helps out a promising, if misguided young gun hatch up a plan to steal a couple of F-16 aircrafts in a daring raid to rescue his father who's held prisoner in the Middle East and it's a race against clock as he has be sentenced to death. Pure fantasy, but this gung-ho piece of propaganda is a simple coming to age story wrapped around its high flying danger. The striking airborne scenes are showy with some moments of suspense and it really goes about kicking out the tunes with it contagious 80s soundtrack. Oh it's cheesy, but definitely contagious. Jason Gedrick brings the right attitude to his young rogue character. The bad guys are stereotypically hissable with a good turn by David Suchet, but it's the presence of an ice-cool Gossett Jr. that keeps you watching. A harden Tim Thomerson would also make an appearance. Director Sidney J. Furie (who would also go on to direct II and IV) keeps it well-oiled, even though it does get outrageous and becomes overlong in its plotting. The story begins with a novel idea, but then it carefully lays it out --- the characters open up with inspirational dialogues and situations involve setting up the master plan. Then it goes out big evolving into an exciting assault. The original was that successful that it would spawn a franchise with a couple more entries --- three sequels with somewhat a similar formula.

This movie was okay, certainly nothing great, but it was a much more interesting film than "Top Gun". Perhaps I think this way, because when it comes down to it, "Top Gun" has more of a chick flick feel to it while this one is more about action. However, it is very unrealistic action to be sure. The story has a kid's dad taken prisoner so what is the boy going to do you ask? He is going to find a guy named Chappy, get a couple of M.I.Gs and go rescue his dad, because all you need in an 80's movie to rescue someone is a bit of training in a jet and a dude to accompany you to take out an entire military posts jets and ground troops. Like I said it is highly unrealistic, but it has some flair and is rather fun to watch at times, but it also moves slowly at times too. It does not go by as slowly as "Top Gun" did for me, but it could have stood to lose ten or fifteen minutes from its run time. The only stars of note in this one is Louis Gossett Jr. who at this point was in kind of a steady decline as to what films he would appear in. Also of note was Tim Thomerson who is more of your B star, but I always enjoy him in a flick. Granted he is not in this one all that much. So don't expect much and just enjoy the highly improbable rescue of 1986!

In the 1980's patriotism, and in some cases flat out Jingoism, was pretty high. "Do we get to win this time" a line famous from Rambo: First Blood part II, could almost sum up how many people felt at that time. A longing for the style of films they grew up with, flat out balls to the wall "we're good, your bad...now let's blow something up, and go home" While Rambo, Rocky, and for the most part Top Gun seemed more geared towards attracting an older crowd Iron Eagle went straight for the kids. Canadian writer and director Sidney J. Furie brings out everything that you love and hate about that time period. The kick in the pants rock out 80's anthems (never say die, Road of the Gypsy, etc) to the over the top, and sometimes almost unbelievable action adventure. Iron Eagle succeeded for one reason...it was F.U.N - Fun. It's the type of movie you can turn on and sit back and enjoy every ridiculous totally 80's moment. You don't have to think about if it could really happen, or if the acting is truly believable, it's just fun...and that's all you can really ask for in this type of movie...

The bad news is: this movie ain't good. It contains lots of errors (or goofs, in IMDb terminology) and the plot is crap-crap-mega-crap. Totally unbelievable, complete nonsense.But let's be honest, films like these aren't made for good story lines. In fact, many movies aren't.So here's the good news: this movie may not be good, but I don't think it's as bad as most people say it is, either. The acting is good, the aerial combat scenes are very nice (although probably not realistic), there's plenty of humor and the soundtrack is great!If you need/want to watch this film as a critic, continuously alert for errors or other weaknesses, DON'T. You'll kill yourself in a fit of utter depression. I suggest that instead you crank up the volume, break out the popcorn/pizza and beer, put your feet on the table, disable your intellect and just let yourself be entertained. Because that's something this movie IS good for. It's a light-hearted, rocking, funny, feel-good movie with fighter jets in it and a great soundtrack to boot.One last word of advice though: be wary of the sequels! Part 1 (this movie) may not be good, but part II is bad, part III is worse and part IV is worst. Even die-hard Louis Gosset Jr fans don't like them.