The first time I saw this film in the theatre at a foreign film festival, I thought it intriguing, fascinating, the sensitive bi-sexual artist. So very European, so very Dutch! I recently rented it for a second viewing and could hardly keep from laughing at that overworked theme of the mad writer with a religious-sexual orientation persecution complex. Get a grip! This guy is a freeloader, living off of society. I suspect that the real reason he is having these fantasy-nightmares about the "spiderwoman" is that his guilt complex is kicking in after year's of ignoring mother's advice about getting into cars (and bed) with strangers! Not only is he making outrageous sums of (probably taxfree) loot for making up stories (lying guilt trip) but he is too cheap to pay for a hair cut, hence he hustles the beauty salon owner. Then he has the nerve to complain about the bill! But I also suspect the world has changed alot since this film was made. On a serious note it was entertaining to see some of Jan de Bont's camera work and one of Paul Verhoeven's earlier films. Hmmm, maybe the world hasn't changed so very much after all?

Flight of Fury starts as General Tom Barnes (Angus MacInnes) organises an unofficial test flight of the X-77, a new stealth fighter jet with the ability to literally turn invisible. General Barnes gives his top pilot Colonel Ratcher (Steve Toussaint) the job & everything goes well until the X-77 disappears, even more literally than Barnes wanted as Ratcher flies it to Northern Afghanistan & delivers it to a terrorist group known as the Black Sunday lead by Peter Stone (Vincenzo Nicoli) who plans to use the X-77 to fly into US airspace undetected & drop some bombs which will kills lots of people. General Barnes is worried by the loss of his plane & sends in one man army John Sands (co-writer & executive producer Steven Seagal) to get it back & kill all the bad guy's in the process...
This American, British & Romanian co-production was directed by Michael Keusch & was the third film in which he directed Seagal after the equally awful Shadow Man (2006) & Attack Force (2007), luckily someone decided the partnership wasn't working & an unsuspecting public have thankfully been spared any further collaboration's between the two. Apparently Flight of Fury is an almost scene-for-scene word-for-word remake of Black Thunder (1988) starring Michael Dudikoff with many of the same character's even sharing the same name so exactly the same dialogue could be used without the makers even having to change things like names although I must admit I have never seen Black Thunder & therefore cannot compare the two. Flight of Fury is a terrible film, the poorly made & written waste of time that Seagal specialises in these days. It's boring even though it's not that slow, the character's are poor, it's full of clichés, things happen at random, the plot is poor, the reasoning behind events are none existent & it's a very lazy production overall as it never once convinces the viewer that they are anywhere near Afghanistan or that proper military procedures are being followed. The action scenes are lame & there's no real excitement in it, the villains are boring as are the heroes & it's right down there with the worst Seagal has made.
Flight of Fury seems to be made up largely of stock footage which isn't even matched up that well, the background can change, peoples clothes change, the area changes, the sky & the quality of film changes very abruptly as it's all too obvious we are watching clips from other (better) films spliced in. Hell, Seagal never even goes anywhere near a plane in this. The action scenes consist of shoot-outs so badly edited it's hard to tell who is who & of course Seagal breaking peoples arms. The whole production feels very cheap & shoddy.
The IMDb reckons this had a budget of about $12,000,000 which I think is total rubbish, I mean if so where did all the money go? Although set in Afghanistan which is a war torn arid desert Flight of Fury looks like it was filmed down my local woods, it was actually shot in Romania & the Romanian countryside does not make a convincing Afghanistan. The acting is terrible as one would expect & Seagal looks dubbed again.
Flight of Fury is a terrible action film that is boring, amateurish & is an almost scene-for-scene remake of another film anyway. Another really lazy & poorly produced action thriller from Seagal, why do I even bother any more?