Iron Eagle
Tags: cult

Plot synopsis:
Doug, a graduating high school senior, must quickly come to grips with manhood in a time of great emotional stress. He demonstrates leadership of his peers as together they develop materials and information to effect a rescue mission. He interacts with a skilled Air Force veteran to accomplish this daring mission. An underlying theme of the movie is the friendly conflict between children and parents, including several scenes where adults are lampooned as ineffective or easily redirected. Doug must also realize that he doesn't have all the answers, and must rely on the wisdom of a mentor. The pivotal rescue mission and climax showcase the talent of youth and the reconnection with that youth in the heart of the partnering Air Force pilot.=======================================================Doug Masters is a hot-headed high school senior about to graduate. He is the son of a top-rated US Air Force pilot, Colonel Ted Masters, and lives on his father's base. Doug has a network of friends, also military kids, who will often secretly procure information for him and each other by exploiting their parents' positions on the base. Doug himself is often given the opportunity to fly with his father and control the F16 jet they go up in. Doug is often also given time in the base's simulator. Doug also has aspirations to join the Air Force and attend flight school to become a military pilot. He receives a letter that states he's been turned down for admission to an air academy.Doug accepts a challenge from another teenager to race along a dangerous canyon: Doug will fly his small Cessna airplane against Knotcher, who will ride a motorcycle. Before the race begins, Knotcher tinkers with Doug's plane's fuel line so that it will stall out in the last stages of the race. Doug is barely able to win the race but starts a fight with Knotcher. Doug later is grounded by his father for acting in such a reckless and stupid manner.Doug's father takes a mission to fly reconnaissance over a Middle Eastern country. Though the government there is presumed to be non-hostile, Col. Masters and his wingman are shot down. Masters himself is captured and held prisoner by that country's Minister of Defense, Colonel Nakesh. Nakesh tortures Doug's father and proclaims him a rogue terrorist. He sentences him to death.Back at Master's base, the commander informs Doug about his father's capture and that the US State Department plans not to invade the rogue country to rescue his father. Doug is immediately angry, saying that the US government isn't doing enough to help his father, however the base commander tells Doug that their hands are tied but they are continuing to search for a diplomatic solution. Doug talks to an older pilot, a friend of his father's, Col. Charles 'Chappy' Sinclair, who tells Doug to let the government continue their efforts to secure Col. Masters' release. Doug asks Chappy if there's a possibility that a pair of F16s could fly into the hostile country and rescue his father. Chappy says it would be a long shot but also gravely warns Doug not to try it.Doug talks to his friends at their clubhouse -- an old, abandoned bunker on the base -- and asks them to help him gather intelligence information on the country and city where his father is being held as well as their military capabilities. Doug talks to Chappy again telling him that he can get more information for him to plot a mission to rescue his father. Chappy admires Doug's initiative and agrees to help him.Doug's friends begin to gather the info they need: at one point they set off firecrackers in a main command room, distracting the personnel long enough to gain access to a restricted computer. Chappy guides Doug's crew through the planning process and they formulate a mission to have two, fully-fueled and armed F16s for Doug and Chappy.Chappy decides to take Doug up for a test flight to see how well he can do in combat. While they're up, Doug uses a Walkman to play music he claims gives him the proper rhythm to hit his targets. Chappy harshly tells him to cut the music but Doug insists and proves that his method works and impresses Chappy. The night before they're supposed to leave, Chappy congratulates Doug's crew on a job well done & insists that Doug get some sleep. Doug is defiant but agrees when Chappy tells him that many pilots have died in combat under his command, but they still followed orders.Chappy and Doug fly out on the mission, refueling along the flight path. When they reach the coast of the nation where his father was shot down, the two engage in air-to-ground combat with the country's outer defenses. Chappy's plane is hit and crashes. Before he goes down, Chappy tells Doug to continue & play a tape he'd prepared for him. Doug listens to it: Chappy gives him encouragement and tells him to stay focused & he'll be fine.At Nakesh's base, Nakesh himself begins to beat Doug's father in retaliation.Doug reaches Nakesh's base and begins an air-to-ground attack that takes out missile and artillery installations. Doug contacts them by radio, bluffing that he's part of a larger force that has come to free his father. When Nakesh won't meet his demands, Doug drops bombs on a nearby oil refinery. Nakesh consents and releases Col. Masters, allowing him to drive to the end of a runway alone in a jeep. Doug is about to land to pick up his father, when a sniper shoots the Colonel in the shoulder. Doug destroys another oil refinery in retaliation, then firebombs the runway to cover his own landing. He meets his father, helps him into the plane and takes off. Low on ammunition, fuel and missiles, Doug engages Nakesh himself in the air. After a brief dogfight, Doug destroys his plane. A small squadron of Nakesh's pilots are waiting for him but bug out when a squadron of American F16s arrives and escorts Doug out of hostile territory. Doug asks the squadron to take up a missing man formation for Chappy, which they gladly do.Back in the United States, Doug's father is debriefed and Doug goes to a military hearing to answer for stealing his plane and taking on an unauthorized mission. The tribunal calls in a special witness, who turns out to be Chappy himself, having survived the crash. When Doug is admonished by the base commander, Doug asserts that no one else seemed to be willing to rescue his father. Chappy testifies, saying that he aided Doug and that Doug also needs to learn discipline and that an air academy would be the best place for him to learn. The commander agrees to endorse Doug's application.

Review: I have Iron Eagle on DVD and to me it was totally worth $9.99 at Best Buy. If you love laughing at dated, unrealistic action movies, this one is a must-see.
Oh yeah, and I think its plot was only marginally stupider than 1986's other fighter pilot action pic, Top Gun..
It was the best air combat movie I had seen at the time.
There is one scene where they young pilot asks for Chappy's help and he turns him down and Louis Gossett's acting skills become quite evident.
While I can't say that Iron Eagle is a masterpiece, it is one of my favorite movies of all time.
The film focuses a boy about eighteen-years-old (Jason Gedrick) ; when his father (Tim Thomerson) is taken prisoner by a dictator (David Suchet) from Middle East , he steals a F 16 fighter jet to rescue his daddy .
The movie contains a plethora of action scenes , explosion , blasts , aircraft battles with various jet-planes flying to sound-velocity and blown up .
The picture is a blend of typical films from the 80s , as ¨Top Gun¨and ¨Rambo¨ but starred by a teenager .The story provides entertainment and action with no sense but being sometimes a little bit boring and dull .
Back in 1986 I was a sixteen year old boy, when I first saw this film, I thought back then that this movie was one of the coolest I've ever seen.
It's not the worst "I-wanna-be-a-pilot" movies ever, but it has so many flaws in it that you can hardly overlook them.Queen's "One Vision" (along with the rest of the soundtrack) makes this film better than the average patriotic nonsense you usually get to see ;)[****------].
I think its just basically a lot of fun but maybe a little too unrealistic for some to buy into.Again, regardless, I loved it, people who I know saw it, loved it so its definitely worth seeing to make your own decisions about it.
The chemistry between Lou and Jason is great, believeable at times.Iron Eagle in my honest opinion is better than Top Gun, many say it isn't but I think it is...it certainly has the better action scenes and a cool thumping soundtrack.
This is exactly what this movie's about, a kid completely enthralled with flight simulations that he becomes a good pilot.They should have left it at that though.
This is exactly how you should watch the movie, otherwise, it will seem like a ridiculous plot that's out-of-touch with the real world..
and while it's not god-awful, it's not all that good, either.IRON EAGLE is the story of new high school grad Doug Masters (Jason Gedrick, whom you'd recognize from CROSSING THE BRIDGE and ONE EYED KING had you ever heard of those movies).
Iron Eagle has a great soundtrack, cool dog fighting sequences, and a good story line (whether it's realistic or not).
It's a story every young person who likes military fighter jets would love to live.
Or go glam like Hollywood and watch Top Gun. How many times have US and Russian planes flown inverted and given the other the bird from a few feet away.
Iron Eagle is a great movie.....check it out..
I love fighter jet movies, and this was the best one I've seen lately.
If you like watching U.S. F-16s blow the living daylights out of their enemies, this is a great movie for you..
A teen-age boy, who is not in the military and has not trained to be a jet pilot, takes off for a foreign country to rescue his dad.
The US government drags its feet in recovering him, leading the Pilot's son (Doug Masters) to attempt a rescue mission.The problem I have with the movie is that it depicts the US Air Force as one colossal joke.
In the movie you'll find that Doug and his friends on the air base manage to secure two F-16's, all the munitions, the fuel, the Intel for the mission, and so on.
Nobody seems to have a problem that a sixteen-year-old kid is fully qualified to pilot an F-16!If that wasn't enough, you would think the producers would at least attempt to get the munitions right, since people like to see things `blow up'.
Until Hollywood can come up with an Air Force movie on the lines of `Saving Private Ryan' or `A Few Good Men', we'll be forced to watch movies like the `Iron Eagle' series..
maybe make a good investment, donate, buy a few things, but the directors of this movie decided to make Iron Eagle...
It looks like Topgun but with a different plot and (a lot of people will disagree with me here) in my view it's better than Topgun.This film has some amazing dogfight scenes when the fighter jets are zooming through the air.
It also has the Queen song "One Vision" thumping in the background, which in my opinion is a fantastic song.To be honest, Iron Eagle was very good but it's sequels were rubbish..
Two Air Force Films Were Released in 1986: This Was The Bad One. After a young man's father is captured by an unidentified Middle Eastern country, the youth must suit up and save his father from a brutal execution.This film fails in almost every possible way.
I myself am a big fan of the Air Force and love to watch any movie where I can get a glimpse of an F-16 flying.
If you like Top Gun, then I guarantee you will love this movie also.
Without actually giving away my age, I saw this for the first time over 20 years ago when it first came out on video (maybe it was a beta tape??) and I was old enough to drink (barely) and perhaps I had had a few because I remember thinking how great this movie was!
There is one main difference – "Top gun" was made for teenagers (adults can watch it too) , while "Iron eagle" is aimed for kids.
A story about a young pilot that saves his father from bad guys and becomes a hero A story of father-son relationship between Doug and Chappy  A story of friendship when Doug's friends help him any way they can  What's here not to love ?
Louis Gossett Jr stars as Chappy Sinclair an Air Force pilot who really gives a s--- about American POWs (His words exactly) so he helps a teenager (Who desperately wants to be a pilot and who is also played by Jason Gedrick) save his father (The always great Tim Thomerson) from the evil Arabs while Louis Gossett Jr teaches him how to really kick ass.
It is all as bad as what you would expect but yet it works so well, it is a guilty pleasure of the highest order when a movie like this could be made for teenage audiences giving them the fantasy that they could be one man armies who would make the world shutter at their heroics.
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.
Maybe I'm biased because the F-16 is my favorite fighter aircraft - although the F-14 is probably second or third - but I liked this movie.
The sequels (Iron Eagle II and III) don't measure up acting and plot wise, but the first one - along with Top Gun - have excellent flying and music, along with reasonable plots and acting.
At times I thought this movie didn't make sense because how could some hot shot , high school kid be able to fly a military plane ?
We had a USN student in one class, and I was ragging on him pretty good about all the Hollywood BS that was in "Top Gun."  After I mentioned that the Soviet tactic for defeating the F-14 was to get in front and catch it in your jetwash, he shut me up real good when he replied, "Sir, you keep this up and I'll bring up "Iron Eagle!" He sure had me there.Good flick if you know nothing about military flying or you're about 10 years old and dream of being 16 and flying jets.
Iron Eagle may not be the most believable film plot-wise, but the characters are well written and very well acted.
However, I think that using IAI Kfir as opponent planes was really good, far better than the F-5 shown in Top Gun (but this movie isn't as good as that masterpiece).A funny movie, I love planes and I've seen it more than 3 times..
The eighties sure were years of good ol' combat movies about a boy with a talent for F-16's and God-knows-how-many-fighter-jets, who goes on a hell of dangerous mission to save his father's life and survives - of course he does.
But on the other hand, there are MANY really great movies that totally lack logic, so why bother?I both like and dislike this film.
I guess it's not fair to wish for SOME sort of continuity, as it is hard to make a really good fighter film - but I also think there should be some sense of reason.And I have a question: do they fly from California to the Middle East in F-16s without air refueling?
This movie was okay, certainly nothing great, but it was a much more interesting film than "Top Gun".
I just saw this movie 24 years after its release,even though i was around when it was released,i had heard its so bad,i never got around to watch it.
The plot is a little far-fetched,a kid flying the Falcon to the middle east to save his father,i read its the reason the US Airforce refused to help the producers.But,the action scenes are pretty decent and even the plot is funny and not terribly unrealistic,considering this kid supposedly was trained by his pilot father.What i found incredibly cheesy and annoying is the use of the tape player every time he gets n the plane seat.
The plot for this movie is good:  Doug Masters is a young pilot who's dad has been shot down over a middle eastern country.
You should also remember that this film is not a comedy!Even overlooking the preposterous plot (the idea that a 16-year-old could walk into a US Air Force base, steal an F-16, fly to the Middle East and kill about a thousand people without anyone noticing is beyond belief), the film is full of ridiculous action scenes that make little or no sense.
It's also improved by the awesome presence of David Suchet as the evil terrorist leader (maybe you'll recall him as mustachioed Belgian detective Poirot?) Overall, then, the film is a laugh and a light-hearted alternative to more serious fighter-plane movies like Top Gun. Even if it is just as subtly homo-erotic (check out the man-hug between Doug and Chappy.
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.
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.
Well, Doug Masters, who lives on an Air Force base, his father is an air force pilot, yet he fails to get into the air force academy, conceives of a plot (with help from his retarded friends) to steal two jets and go rescue his father.
The film is typical 1980s junk as young Jason Gedrick wants to go to a radical Middle Eastern country and rescue his father who has been captured.
He enlists the help of one of his father's best friends (Louis Gossett, Jr.) to teach him how to be a top-notch fighter pilot as the two have plans to rescue the boy's father.
Furie directed this action-adventure that stars Jason Gedrick as Doug Masters, a willful young man whose father Col. Ted Masters(played by Tim Thomerson) is shot down by MIGs over a hostile Middle Eastern country, where he is taken hostage by the belligerent and ambitious leader(played by David Suchet) who loves sticking it the the U.S. Enraged at government inaction, Doug enlists the help of Air Force Col.
'Chappy' Sinclair(played by Louis Gossett Jr.) to train him to improve his piloting skills, then helps him "borrow" two fighter jets from the military to go into the country, battle the enemy in the air, rescue Ted, and make their escape.
Totally unbelievable, complete nonsense.But let's be honest, films like these aren't made for good story lines.
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.
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!
That being said, and as much as I like Louis Gossett Jr. I think this movie was done in stereotypical cheesy 80's style.
The only one's I can think of off of the top of my head are "Iron Eagle", "Top Gun", "The Final Count Down" ,"Fire Birds" and more recently "Behind Enemy Lines".
I give Iron Eagle a 5 out of 10 (10 being the best) rating against the other Aerial Combat Military movies out there..
Iron Eagle is the story of a teenager (Jason Gedrick) who with the help of an experienced jet pilot (Louis Gossett Jr.) "borrows" a couple F16 fighters to rescue his father who is being held prisoner in a hostile Arabic country.
It is a cheesy movie, everything is pretty much totally improbable, if not impossible, but it is a good story of father-son affection.Jason Gedrick is Doug Masters, young Cessna pilot, high schooler, whose dad is a military fighter pilot.
Doug aspires to attend the Air Force Academy and become a fighter pilot also, and has made friends with some on the base who allow him ample fighter simulator time.The drama begins when Doug's dad is flying a routine training mission over the Mediterranian and is shot down.
So along with his friends, and retired fighter pilot Louis Gossett Jr. as Col. Charles 'Chappy' Sinclair, they hatch a plan to fly two armed fighter planes to rescue dad, re-fueling over the Atlantic.
The basic story is that a kid's father, who is a fighter pilot in the US air force, gets trapped in some generic Middle- Eastern country.
the military spends millions on each pilot to make them the best in the world and this movie makes the air force and all its members seem stupid at best.
Air Force brat Doug Masters (Jason Gedrick) finds out that his father has been shot down and captured by a brutal Middle Eastern regime and embarks on a crazy plan to rescue him, which involves stealing multi-million dollar jet fighters.I loved this movie as a kid and I still do.
There's some good action and chase sequences and the last 20 minutes were fantastic and make this movie worth watching.
It's about a sixteen-year-old named Doug Masters (Jason Gedrick) that decides to take matters into his own hands after his father (a Air Force colonel) is shot down and captured one day while on a reconnaissance mission.
We live "Iron Eagle" and "Top Gun" and "Platoon" and "Full Metal Jacket" every day of our service to you and our country.One of the three best days of my life was the day I was commissioned an Air Force officer in 1972 and one of the worst was the day I was informed that I had to retire from the reserve.
Only when one boy tells Doug Masters that his father was shot down after the Cessna planes landed in the "snake" race, forces us back to the time the conflict already started.
With the Air Force having futile attempts to save the man, Doug decides to pull his friends and Col. Sinclair (played by Louis Gossett Jr.) for a plan to rescue Masters.
Risking a high chance of facing a court martial and spending more than a year in a military stockade, he goes against Air Force policy and makes a plan to rescue Masters without consent of the U.S. government.Doug and his friends sneak into several classified areas of the base to get plenty of stuff on the area where Masters is held for the upcoming hanging, and the surrounding area around Bilyad (which turns out to be a fake Middle Eastern country for the movie).
He likes music when he fires the fighter ammunition.The last part of the conflict, the final dogfight action in "Iron Eagle" was better than Top Gun's climax of the hostile dogfight sequences.
I liked the way the final conflict unfolded, especially when Doug Masters faces off with an Middle-Eastern ace fighter pilot who actually ran the trial against Ted Masters.
I know its just a movie but see if this sounds plausible to you.THE PLOT- Airforce pilot crosses, unintentionally, over the boundary lines of some non discript middle eastern nation and gets shot down and convicted of espionage, he is sentenced to death in 3 days.
Worst of all, is when they are flying back with the rescued pilot and thats when the Air Force comes flying in to save the day.