DOH!! Stupid Bledsoe!!--whoops, wrong one...

Rating: 7/10 (27 February 2000)

Uhhh, this one was kinda like watching Die Hard II but with a Steven Segal type on board with a planeload of whackjobs instead of Willis. I liked it, in an A-Team with dead bodies, more explosions and bigger budget kind of way-but its nothing special. Sure, Malkovich, Cage, Rhames and Buscemi are all big name actors, and yeah, some of them rise to the occasion. For me, it was entertaining enough, but not worth trying to pin down for its loopholes or unrealistic moments. This is a flight of fantasy, pure and simple. Bruckheimer and Cage had done it before-better I might add-in the Rock just a year before, and it shows.
(I Do throw in a couple Spoilers about a Bad Guy at the End, too, warning!!!!)
I got a kick outta seeing the Irish Trek guy as a DEA slug, and then Reverand Alden from Little House on the Prairie sharing space under a truck with Nick Cage. Cusack was pretty good too.
Buscemi's characeter was under-written, I preferred him as Rockhound in Armageddon myself, but always like seeing him of course. Guys like David Chappelle and the big Indian there were good in their parts, stereotyped as they were, ditto the mangy looking Pilot. All of them fine character actors.
Over all, you have to give it some stars for panache and ooomph, esp the overkill way they have of killing off Malkovich, what with the pile driver, fire truck and what-not. They really wanted us to get the point-the guy is a bastard and is quite dead at the end, no doubt.
Cage's southern accent sucked and you really hadda wonder Why they even bothered, but overall he was okay.
I give it **1/2 outta ****, pretty good effort for what it is.