bob the moo John Dantley investigates a midair collision between two planes that killed over 130 people. At first it appears human error is to blame, however the controller, Henry Drake, insists that a blackout causes one of the planes to disappear temporally from his screen. Dantley investigates to find a history of equipment failures and complaints has not been recorded and that Drake may be the most likely suspect. However with time things begin to look more complex than he first thought.The story essentially is a condemnation of lack of investment in air-traffic control in contrast with spiralling air traffic. It could have coldly looked at that and been damning in effect, but instead it tries to turn it into a thriller and ruins it's credibility as a serious film. The glitch that caused the plane crash is far to specific to have it represent the whole system of the failure and Drake is far to suspicious (what was he doing on the CCTV? It's never satisfactorily revealed) to be an `everyman' type - in fact Drake is totally misused as the film changes his character to create a `tense' `standoff' finish to the film. Why?Another example of the plot stretching to make it more of a TVM thriller than a serious movie is the way that Dantley's ex-girlfriend was on one of the planes that crashed. This adds nothing to the story and only succeeds in clouding the issue. The main point of the film is valid - that systems are close to breaking point and are not up to the job, but it's lost in a bigger conspiracy, Dantley's personal loss and Drake's unlikely actions at the end.Charles Martin Smith is good right up till the very unlikely last 30 minutes, but Stoltz is mixed. At times he seems OK but some scenes are terrible - the one near the end where he confronts the site manager with a forced emotion and bad dialogue is a good (bad) example.Overall, this has a valid point to make and it makes it well for much of the film. However the makers added too much baggage (a thriller climax, a dead ex etc) to make it work. Some scenes are great but mostly this is a C movie - and only for trying hard.

matchew13 I have seen this movie several times, and think that it is one of the better TV movies out there. No, it's not the best, but it has a good story line that flows quite well. Some things, as stated in a previous review, may not be totally accurate, but pretty much anyone smart enough to notice those technical mistakes should know that made for TV movies don't have a large enough budget to get every little detail correct. I have to say that this is a movie worth watching.

Goon-2 I like "Charlie" Martin Smith and he hadn't been in much when this movie aired, so I was happy to watch, and even happier that this was a network TV movie, but not one about love interests, and affairs and sexual passions and all of that other junk that most fills most other network TV movies. Instead, "Blackout Effect" is a pretty interesting story about an air traffic controller(Mr. Smith) basically getting his life ruined because people blame him for causing a fatal plane crash. I don't know a thing about air traffic controllers, so I didn't exactly understand a lot of what was going on, but Smith does a nice job at his "troubled" character and co-star Eric Stoltz is very convincing as well. Add that with a smooth directing job from Jeff Bleckner(who's "Concealed Enemies" I quite wish I could have seen) and you get a film that's quite above average for the usual network-TV fair. An achievment.

airodyssey The idea of the movie is quite good to me: finding a quick responsible for a mid-air collision (in this case, the air traffic controller). However, it was not exploited correctly. The entire movie is full of technical mistakes regarding the aviation and air traffic control domain. This shows that the producers didn't care about their lack of information. Also, the actors do not seem very sincere unfortunately.As to conclude, the entire movie is not worth watching it.