Sam Panico A few minutes into this movie, Becca turned to me and said, "There isn't anyone good in this one like the others." I disagreed. This film is filled with some of my favorite people and while it's the worst film in the series, it's also my favorite. If they ever make a blu ray of it, I demand to do a commentary track for it!Directed by David Lowell Rich (Satan's School for Girls, Eye of the Cat), this film is quite relevant today, as it's rife with corrupt corporations, drone planes and media scandals. You've got Robert Wagner playing a corrupt arms dealer who is in love with Susan Blakely, yet he keeps trying to kill her.For the ladies, there's Alain Delon as the dashing captain. And for the men, there's Sylvia Kristel as the gorgeous airline hostess. And for the fans of The Omen, there's David Warner as a henpecked flight officer.There may never be a movie as sexist as this one. Just look at the way the character of Patroni has changed. He's no longer a ground crew guy who will kick a pilot out of his own plane. Now, he's flying the plane while making sexist jokes at every opportunity To wit:Isabelle: You pilots are such... men.Capt. Joe Patroni: They don't call it the cockpit for nothing, honey.Or when he asks Delon's character about Vietnam:Capt. Joe Patroni: Gee, I remember this Eurasian gal. She had these great big blue eyes. They called her the tarantula. You ever run into her?Capt. Paul Metrand: No, I don't think so.Capt. Joe Patroni: You'd remember if you did. She was a real ball breaker!That makes me wonder - how was Patroni in Vietnam? Wasn't he already working in the Chicago airport back in the original? Well, now his wife is dead, his son is in college and he's ready to party. In fact, when they get to Paris, he gets set up with a prostitute and has the night of his life. Is he mad when the ruse is revealed? Hell no! It makes him overjoyed as he slaps his pal's back!Then there's Eddie Albert as a rich businessman and Sybil Danning as his wife, to which Patroni comments "She's his fourth wife. There's this story that back in the 20's when he was barnstorming he made a bet that he could put it to this good lookin' wing walker. He boffed her right out on the wing a thousand miles above El Paso. His ass got so sunburned he couldn't sit down a week!"What is happening with this film? I literally yelled at loud several times during it, shocked at how raw it seems in the world of political correctness. But this isn't Blazing Saddles, a film that uses non-PC language for comic effect. This is a scummy cash-in, the final film of a once high prestige franchise. And I loved every minute of this strange bird!Martha Raye gets locked in a bathroom as a plane faces turbulence! Jimmie "Dynomite" Walker smokes up and carries his saxophone everywhere! Cicely Tyson just wants to get her son a new heart! John Davidson performs his own marriage ceremony to a Russian gymnast! Mercedes McCambridge, the voice of Pazuzu, is in this! And Charo is in the credits and has around thirty seconds of screen time, thirty seconds which had me screaming in pure joy!Have you realized yet how much I adore this movie? How can you not love a film where a heat sinking missile is defeated by rolling down the window of a supersonic airplane and shooting a flare gun out the window? And after the plane went through such chaos between New York and Paris, why would anyone allow it to fly again the next day? Why wouldn't security be increased? And why not crash land the Concorde in the alps? Why would they even get on the plane in the first place?Even better, there's a news report earlier in the film that sounds like it came straight out of The Simpsons, a strange piece of comedy in a film that has been serious so far. That's because that voice belongs to Harry Shearer!Obviously, we wouldn't have Airplane! without these films. But after watching the last two films, it's pretty hard to parody what has become a parody.

mrb1980 The original 1970 "Airport" was excellent, with a good cast working with a top script about a hectic winter night at an urban airport. The 1975 and 1977 sequels were watchable, if a little silly. However, this movie outdoes all the others combined with campy, ridiculous silliness.Paul Metrand (Alain Delon) and Joe Patroni (George Kennedy) are Concorde pilots who run into a little bit of trouble, courtesy of sinister arms dealer Kevin Harrison (Robert Wagner). Harrison is determined to bring down the plane because reporter Maggie Whelan (Susan Blakely) has the goods on him and is on the plane. Harrison scrambles jet fighters (apparently he has his own private air force) to fire missiles to shoot down the Concorde without success. Then, Harrison's henchmen rig the cargo door to open in flight, which will surely rip the plane apart and kill everyone. Metrand and Patroni manage to belly land the crippled airliner at a French ski resort in the Alps (wow!) and evacuate the passengers before the plane explodes. Harrison is so distraught that he commits suicide at the end of the film. Also along for the ride are Sylvia Kristel, Eddie Albert, Charo, John Davidson, Jimmie Walker, and many other familiar faces.I really liked this movie not because it's good, but because it's so darn campy that it's irresistible. Any movie that has George Kennedy firing a flare gun out an open Concorde window during flight (at 30,000 feet, maybe?) has to be seen to be believed. The plane also turns upside down and later spectacularly lands on a ski slope, plowing up enormous amounts of snow. Campy dialogue, absurd situations, you name it…it's not good, but it's certainly entertaining.Best line: Joe Patroni (Kennedy): "We've got explosive decompression!!!!"

Coventry All the entries in the 70's disaster movie franchise "Airport" – a total of four movies spread over one decade – have been chastised by critics as well as regular action movie fanatics for being too grotesque and ludicrous. Me, personally, I liked the three previous installments a lot, but I can't but admit that the swan song in the series is a completely laughable effort. The supposedly adrenalin-rushing script is absurd, the stereotypical characters are cartoonish, the acting performances are wooden and the action sequences are downright hilarious. The set-up and plot of "The Concorde" is faithful to the previous movies. We have a cast full of acclaimed names, often in inferior little roles, and a screenplay that brings together pretty much everything that can go wrong on an intercontinental flight. The prestigious Concorde aircraft is ready to fly from New York to Paris and then onwards towards Moscow in celebration of the 1980 Olympics. One of the passengers is the female journalist Maggie Whelan, who's in possession of some important evidence that will unmask her ex-fiancée Kevin Harrison as an illegal weapon dealer. It's most vital for him that Maggie never reaches Moscow and thus he tries to kill her, as well as the rest of the Concorde passengers and crew, subsequently through nuclear missiles and sabotage. Luckily for the passengers, the Concorde has two of the world's biggest macho men behind the steering wheel with the French Captain Paul Metrand and the American veteran pilot Joe Patroni. "The Concorde: Airport 79" is a dumb and fairly pathetic film, but fortunately enough it remains amusing and never bores for one second. The sight of an hi-tech advanced airplane making loops in order to evade missiles is definitely bad in an entertaining way and the hammy performances of A-list stars are fun to observe as well. Particularly Robert Wagner is tremendous as the villain. With his straight face and eloquent monologues, he represents the prototype of Bond-movie villains and I strongly suspect that Mike Myers hired him to play Number Two in the Austin Powers' movie solely based on his performance here. Alain Delon looks quite bored and soft-erotica star Sylvia "Emmanuelle" Kristel is rather unnoticeable when she keeps her clothes on. Fun bloke George Kennedy is the only actor who appeared in all four of the "Airport" movies, so it's truly a shame that he plays his biggest role in the worst of the series. The dialogs are lame and some of the clichéd sub plots are horrendous (does there really have to be an emergency donor organ transport in every disaster movie?), but I certainly didn't regret the two hours of my life that I wasted on watching this film.

StuOz I remember walking out of an Australian movie theatre in 1980 and saying to my brother..."That was a disaster movie but what was the disaster?". Granted, I was a child at the time.This Airport movie is different to the other three, no big sea dive or big collision, Airport '79 just seemed to be all over the place! However, the film has improved with age and two recent viewings have been very much enjoyed. It has a touch of The Towering Inferno (1974) with Robert Wagner still being up to no good, the miniature effects work of the Concorde itself is pleasing to my eyes and the film starts with a very uplifting Lalo Schifrin theme tune.Perhaps Schifrin was trying to be the new disaster movie composer as in 1980 he would score Irwin Allen's When Time Ran Out as well.There was to be a 5th Airport movie but the poor box office takings for Airport '79 put an end to all that. Too bad as all four Airport films are a special part of the 1970s and still survive repeat viewings to this day.