Adriano González | Through the Shattered Lens

The 2004 film, Last Flight Out, tells the story of Dan (Richard Tyson) and Anne (Bobbie Phillips).

Once upon a time, Dan and Anne were in love. Perhaps they were attracted by the fact that their names rhymed. “Dan and Anne” is just one of those phrases that just rolls off the tongue. Unfortunately, it takes more than rhyming names to make a relationship work. Dan was a cynic and Anne wanted to make the world a better place and, in the end, she decided she could do that better without him than with him.

Now, Anne is missionary, working with Dr. Matteo Barrero (Adriano Gonzalez) at a village in a South American country that is, more or less, ruled by a drug cartel. And Dan is a pilot, flying missions throughout the world and trying not to get emotionally connected with anyone. Anne’s mentor, Tony Williams (Cliff de Young), approaches Dan with a job. The village where Anne is working is currently under siege from a drug lord who demands that all the villagers come to work for him. The payment that drug lord offers for their work is simple. If they work for him, he will reward them by not killing them. If they don’t work for him …. well, you get the idea.

Dan flies to the village, mostly to try to get Anne to safety. But Anne explains that she won’t abandon the villagers to the drug lord. Eventually, Anne is able to convince the village’s chief that the entire villages needs to be moved to safety. That’ll mean putting all twenty of them on Dan’s plan and flying them away from the drug lord’s army. Dan explains that, even if they take all the seats out of the plane, they’ll still be overweight and unable to take off. Both Anne and Matteo tells Dan to have a little faith.

And, while the drug lord’s army fires at them from the ground, the plane does manage to take off! But Matteo is left behind. Back in civilization, everyone is convinced that Matteo is dead. Dan, however, is determined to go back and, if possible rescue Matteo. That, of course, will mean flying straight back into the gunfire and once again, risking his life for another person. And, in this case, his name doesn’t even rhyme with Matteo’s!

Last Flight Out isn’t a bad little film. Of course, those tempted to watch the film on Tubi should be aware that it is a faith-based production, so Matteo is very outspoken in his belief in God and the film does feature prayers while in flight. Naturally, Dan is the atheist who changes his position after witnessing the bravery of the missionaries. That said, the film is smart to emphasize action over preaching and Richard Tyson gives a likable performance as Dan. In the end, one need not be filled with faith to know that slave labor is wrong. Director Jerry Jameson, who directed a host of disaster films in the 70s and the 80s, keeps the action moving at a steady pace and, the end result, is a watchable action film.

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Gun, an anthology series that ran on ABC for six week in 1997. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

Tonight, we finish up Gun!

Episode 1.6 “Father John”

(Dir by Jeremiah S. Chechik, originally aired on May 31st, 1997)

Father John, the final episode of Gun, is also one of its worse. The only thing keeping it from being the absolute worst is that Robert Altman directed that episode that dealt with the country club presidency and then there was that episode with Daniel Stern as the guy having an elaborate Hollywood fantasy and, of course, there was last week’s episode with Kirsten Dunst…. actually, now that I think about it, of the six episodes of Gun that were produced, Father John is in the top 3 but only by default.

The episode stars Fred Ward as John Farragut, a newspaper columnist who is also a recovering alcoholic and who is always struggling to keep up with his alimony payments to his ex-wife, Joyce (Brooke Adams). John doesn’t have much faith in the world but he has always worshiped his Uncle John, a priest for whom he was named. When Uncle John dies, nephew John is shocked to discover that his uncle not only died with a lot of money hidden away in his room but that he also owned the pearl-handled gun that appears in every episode of this series. What secrets were being hidden by Uncle John!?

Nephew John sets out to find out. At first, he assumes that his Uncle must have been having an affair with a woman named Gloria (Angela Alvarado) but he then comes to learn that Gloria (whose real name is Gabriella) is a refugee who was rescued from a sex trafficking ring by his uncle. Uncle John had the gun to protect Gabriella and now, it’s time for his nephew to continue to protect her.

It sounds pretty straight-forward and, to be honest, there really aren’t any unexpected twists in this episode. That said, the episode itself is incredibly overwritten. We not only get to watch as living John tries to solve a very simple mystery but, even worse, we have to listen to his narration as he tells us the details of what he’s doing. Of course, we can already see what he’s doing so it all feels a bit redundant. The narration itself is so hard-boiled that it feels almost like a parody of the detective genre and I found myself wondering why anyone would want to read anything written by a man whose narration is essentially a collection of clichés. John Farragut is the type of guy who says, “If you sleep with dogs, you wake up with fleas,” as if he think he’s the first person to ever come up with it. Surprisingly, Fred Ward is very much miscast as John Farragut. With his weathered face and his weary tone, it’s hard to buy Ward as someone who 1) still hero-worships anyone and 2) would still be crying about having never met his father. Farragut appears to be nearly 50 and he’s still whining about stuff that most people get over or have figured out by the time they graduate college. Farragut’s actions often only make sense if you accept that idea that he is impossibly naïve about the world and that’s not the feeling one would ever get from a character played by Fred Ward.

With this episode, Gun ends on a boring note but, then again, it was never a particularly exciting series to begin with. For all the notable actors who appeared in Gun, it’s hard to think of any stand-out episodes or performances. If I had to rank the episodes, it would go something like this:

That’s not a very impressive list, to be honest. Gun perhaps would have worked better if there had been some sort of continuity as far as the gun itself was concerned. Perhaps the show would have worked if there had been a feeling of the gun following a natural journey from owner to owner. Instead, it just randomly showed up in each story and sometimes, it was important and, far more often, it was just a prop. The show certainly had nothing to say about American gun culture. It was an uneven show. The opening credits featured U2 covering Happiness Is Warm Gun and Bono’s overbaked interpretation of the lyrics felt appropriate for this show’s flashy but shallow style.

Next week, there will be a new show in this time slot. What will it be? Uhmmmm …. ask me next week.