Surface to Air (1998) Michael Madsen, Chad McQueen, Melanie Shatner, Teri Fruichantie Movie Review

Surface to Air (1998)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Michael Madsen in Surface to Air (1998)

Madsen, Massin and Mediocrity

Half brothers Zach (Michael Madsen) and Dylan Massin (Chad McQueen) have never seen eye to eye; as children if one said something was white the other would say black and things are still the same as grown ups. Except Zach is now a Gunnery Sgt. and Dylan is a Lieutenant both on the same carrier heading to deal with terrorist trouble in the Middle East. But when Dylan's plane goes down over enemy trouble Zach immediately leads a team on a dangerous rescue mission to find his little brother.

30 minutes in to "Surface to Air" the only thing which has been established is that there is terrorist activity in the East and the Massin brothers don't get on. Okay so there have been other things but they are all inconsequential and if you had watched "Surface to Air" with the misguided expectation of it being a good movie it is quickly destroyed. The daft thing is that after 30 minutes of filler instead of getting a good story we get more filler and I reckon you could condense the real story in "Surface to Air" in to just 30 minutes and it still wouldn't feel rushed.

As such you can pretty much guess I wasn't impressed with "Surface to Air" and as I sit here writing this I am at a loss for positives to write about it. I suppose I could mention that the stock footage of the fighter planes in flight are impressive but I am sure I have seen the same footage used elsewhere. And then there is Michael Madsen who stomps through the movie like a bear with a sore head growling out his lines which works to some extent for the character of Zach. But I wouldn't be surprised it Madsen was just pissed off for being in such a bad movie, I say that because he delivers the same level of annoyance throughout the entire movie rather than bringing any light and shade to his character.

What this all boils down to is that "Surface to Air" is just another one of those action b-movies made in the 90s which never really work to make for an entertaining experience. Whilst it isn't the worst movie I have watched it is a drawn out slog with little which is gripping or exciting about it.


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