Fire Birds (1990) - Review

Fire Birds (1990) is the Top Gun your parents told you that they have at home. Releasing four years after the famous Navy pilot movie, Fire Birds sees a group of Army pilots training to master the Apache helicopters to combat drug cartels in South America. The group of pilots is centered on Jake Preston (Cage), a crackshot young-gun ace pilot, Brad Little (Tommy Lee Jones), a distinguished pilot serving as the flight instructor to the intrepid students, and Billie Guthrie (Sean Young), Preston's love interest and army scout pilot. Each of the three get closer together as their individual training and instruction progresses toward an action-packed climax against enemy forces.

I'm not trying to be reductive by comparing the movie to Top Gun, but the similarity in story beats is almost embarrassing. Cage loses a flight partner in the opening sequence of the film, is a know-it-all pilot that is too full of himself to realize his flaws until it is almost too late, is a womanizer to someone he has to wear down, and the bad guys get taken down to an inspiring score. The review blurb on the front of the DVD case even states that you'll enjoy this movie if you enjoyed Top Gun! 

Aforementioned DVD cover

The background cast sure does act their heart out, even though most of the performances could be replaced by cardboard cutouts and achieve the same effect. Cage is not a buttoned up officer by any means, and any sign of respect that he shows comes across as boredom - even when he tries to volunteer himself in what should be a very passionate scene, he is not only stiff but emotionless. The only emotion he does show is during hyper masculine activities like, checks notes, drinking beer, wearing down a woman's resolve, and making things go boom. The only plot I enjoyed was Tommy Lee Jones's character progression: A flight instructor who is just turning 40 years old is starting to realize that his relevance is diminishing, and he isn't the best pilot in the business like he has always been told. The old versus young, student has become the master theme really worked for me. The music even fails to match the tone of the movie: until the end, the music selected is very sleepy and unenthused at times, echoing the action on screen. I can't say that this is a soulless
cash grab, because of the not so insignificant time that spanned the two pilot-themed movies, but it is a very uninspired one. There is some good in here, it just doesn't quite hit as hard as it wants without the soul and emotion behind other similar movies of its time.