At Twenty Five: Drop Zone
December 1994 was not exactly rife with huge releases in the theaters. The Beethoven bio Immortal Beloved starring, the always incredible, Gary Oldman, the period Brad Pitt vehicle Legends of the Fall, and one of the many, many Michael Douglas erotic thriller’s of the early 90s, Disclosure.
But let’s talk about Drop Zone.
Full disclosure, I hadn’t seen Drop Zone before. It’s genre, however, is one I have a definite affinity for: cop infiltrates a group of adrenaline-junkie bad guys to solve a murder/prevent a robbery/save a hostage, etc. This time around, Wesley Snipes is a US Marshall who, along with his brother (also a US Marshall, because why not?) is relocating a convict when the flight they’re on is hijacked and the convict, a computer hacker, is liberated by a group of daredevil skydivers who blow a hole in the side of the plane and all jump. The scene is eerily reminiscent of the opening of The Dark Knight Rises, now that I think of it.
The plane lands safely (sure it does), but Snipes’ brother (played all too briefly by Malcolm Jamal-Warner) is killed in the shoot-out on the flight, prior to the jump. Snipes, now suspended from the force pending investigation, begins his own hunt for the men responsible. This leads him to the skydiving school of Jessie Crossman (played by Yancy Butler), who just so happens to have been involved with the skydiving skyjackers. But after the leader of the gang murders one of their own, Jessie decides to help bring them down.
Look, as I recount this now, I realize it doesn’t make a ton of sense. Does it have to, really? You want a compelling story, watch The Usual Suspects for the four hundredth time.
Is this a good movie? Of course not! Are you going to enjoy it? Sure you are.
There are some really impressive, live skydive stunts, some laughably bad green-screen, Westley Snipes being quippy and funny, Yancy Butler being tough and sexy, Gary Busey being...well, Gary Busey.
I’m certain that this movie was a lot more impressive in 1994. The reliance on green-screen forces this movie to age poorly. Some movies weren’t made for the digital age, and the clarity of 1080p really adds too much detail, sometimes. Just ask Cesar Romero’s moustache.
I find that watching films in digital does often take away some of the magic of older movies. The crappy 80s horror films that I love so much just don’t translate to a digital format. The grainy footage was part of the charm, like the soft crackle of vinyl on a turntable. In these 80s and 90s action films, the sins of movie magic are laid bare by the digital transfer - stunt doubles, once unnoticeable, become as obvious as Ed Wood’s dentist in Plan 9; green screen, as I previously stated, becomes so glaringly absurd that even the Indiana Jones films suffer for it. A digital formatting certainly didn’t help Drop Zone.
It’s amazing that they put this on a lobby card
Still, I do have a love for these 90s action movies. I have clear memories of catching Point Break on some weekend when we had a free preview of Cinemax, and of seeing Cliffhanger in the theater with my folks, of huddling around one of those big old TVs that sat on the floor and weighed 200 pounds, watching Gleaming the Cube with my friends (yeah, that was the 80s, and a slightly different subgenre, but whatever, you know what I mean). These are the sort of movies that gave us Michael Bay. For better or worse. But they give us something else, too, something that gets lost a lot of the time: an ESCAPE.
We can dial out, suspend our reality and just disappear into two hours of non-stop action. It doesn’t need to be smart, or even particularly well-made. It just has to be loud enough and fast enough to shake loose all that is weighing us down, and give us someplace to hide for two hours. And that seems to be in very high demand nowadays - The Fast and The Furious, anyone?
Tough-guy one-liners, awesome stunts, sexy ladies, and the bad guys get what’s comin’ to ‘em. What’s not to like?
6/10.
I can’t stop laughing at publicity stills from this movie
