Flight of Fury (2006)

Tatonka Rating: 1.5 (on a good day, when you've napped first)

Tagline: “A Flight Plan to Freedom …”

Suggested Tagline: “Steven Seagal is both the Cause of and the Cure for Terrorism”


Director: Michael Keusch

Writers: Steven Seagal and Joe Halpin

Theme Song/Soundtrack: Generic militaristic royalty free music.

Trailer:




Cast: Steven Seagal and a bunch of other people over 50 pretending to be under 30 and to have a variety of scary foreign accents.

Trivia about The Movie:

It’s a remake of a likely even more terrible 1998 movie “Black Thunder.” (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004738/) Steven Seagal co-ripped off the script and it has caused quite a stir amongst the “People Who Love Movies about the Military No Matter How Crappy They Are” community. Apparently the special effects in Flight of Fury are better.


The Plot in Review:

Air force pilot John Sands (Seagal) narrowly escapes a “memory wipe” while in military prison for something undefined. It’s too bad for us that the erasure is unsuccessful, because there was a chance that by eliminating his character’s memories, Seagal could also diminish his awareness that he is an actor, a singer or is ever seen in public. According to IMDB, the brain fry attempt is because his superiors feel threatened by his intelligence and the totally amazing information he was able to get about sensitive subjects while on his special operations missions.

Within the first ten minutes of the movie, John escapes the detention center. If you’re Steven Seagal, no one can see you riding on top of a truck the size and height of a short bus, even when you’re wearing bright orange Timberlands. He gets away, and immediately showcases his brilliant gun-fighting techniques when he prevents the robbery of a diner/convenience store by sliding across the floor whilst shooting repeatedly at nothing in particular. What is causing his velocity is unknown, but is likely simply magic or perhaps the magnetic pull of the earth’s core on Seagal’s titanium hip replacement. This incident seems unrelated to the plot, until we realize it is the vehicle by which he is reunited with his former military colleagues when his arrest for the shooting deaths of the robbers is brought to the attention of his former commander. Upon reuniting, he sends him to find a top secret Air Force Stealth Bomber known as the X-77, which is the first ever to be totally invisible and has been stolen by John’s former partner, a now corrupt Air Force pilot named Ratcher.

Within the first ten minutes of the movie, John escapes the detention center. If you’re Steven Seagal, no one can see you riding on top of a truck the size and height of a short bus, even when you’re wearing bright orange Timberlands. He gets away, and immediately showcases his brilliant gun-fighting techniques when he prevents the robbery of a diner/convenience store by sliding across the floor whilst shooting repeatedly at nothing in particular. What is causing his velocity is unknown, but is likely simply magic or perhaps the magnetic pull of the earth’s core on Seagal’s titanium hip replacement. This incident seems unrelated to the plot, until we realize it is the vehicle by which he is reunited with his former military colleagues when his arrest for the shooting deaths of the robbers is brought to the attention of his former commander. Upon reuniting, he sends him to find a top secret Air Force Stealth Bomber known as the X-77, which is the first ever to be totally invisible and has been stolen by John’s former partner, a now corrupt Air Force pilot named Ratcher.

At this point in the movie, I fell asleep briefly after having been lulled to sleep by an inordinate number of Top Gun-esque flight montages that displayed the boring power of the plane. After my nap, I woke up to the rebel forces of Banansistan (yes, Banansistan), who have British and also some sort of Middle Eastern or Spanish (I still am not sure) accents and are somehow affiliated with Ratcher and his evil plot.

As a completely necessary aside (or perhaps a merciful disclaimer), Steven Seagal clearly thinks he still looks like this:



In reality, he mostly looks like this:



And if we learn one thing from the wardrobe of this movie it’s that black is just not as slimming as Seagal thinks it is.

Here is a snippet of thrilling dialogue exchange from the film, proving that Seagal is like a brain damaged, nonsensical, one-lining Bruce Willis that has missed his midday geriatric nap:

Policeman: “Who are you?”
Seagal: “I’m just a country boy.”
Policeman: “Who’s your employer?”
Seagal: “I’m self employed right now.”
Policeman: “What do you do?”
Seagal: “I travel a lot.”
Policeman: “That’s no ordinary fighting.”
Seagal: “I grew up in a bad neighborhood.”


The following is a list of requirements for a script written by Steven Seagal, for Steven Seagal:

1. All planes he flies must look impressive and bigger than the Death Star inside, even if they are small.

2. Names of normal places have to be called their most convoluted, vaguely racist and antiquated names. For example, the Persian Gulf becomes the “Gulf of Arabia.” Perhaps he’d like to meet some “Orientals” while he’s out East …

3. Any character Seagal plays at any age must have a girlfriend that is no older than 20. She also must wear teddies even when in military barracks and has to be a closet lesbian that uses her lesbian powers to trick the only villainess in the movie. This of course results in a lesbian scene that has no bearing whatsoever on the plot.

Seagal’s very tenuous grasp on the English language is obvious in the following three lines, the stand-out moments of this movie:

“We cut off their testicles, or we teach them how to sing soprano.” (Is this really an either/or situation? It sounds a lot more like cause and effect.)

“I would be ashamed of you. But I don’t think you deserve my shame.” (Personally, I believe everyone in this cinematastrophe deserves all the shame in the world.)

“Unfortunately, you ain’t going to get no big hit. I wish I had time to whoop your ass and shoot you, but I got to go.”

Do you mean it this time, Steven? Or are we going to see you back here in ten years picking up chicks in the high school parking lot?

While nothing’s more American than Steven Seagal half-assedly fighting terrorism in the Gulf of Persia, at least he has his career as a Mojo Priest to fall back on:



Reviewed by Julia Rogers