Daniel Lusko | Through the Shattered Lens

In this 2020 film from The Asylum, Eric Roberts stars as Col. Herring.

Herring is in charge of an Air Force training base that sits off the coast of Baja California. He’s tough and he’s no-nonsense but he also truly loves the pilots that are training under his guidance. Sparrow (Carol Anne Watts), Cowboy (Ignacyo Matynia), and Spielman (Julian Cavett) might just be recent graduates from the Academy who have never actually served in combat but Herring is convinced that they can be amongst the best of the best. As he puts it, they can be …. Top Gunner!

They get a chance to prove themselves when an advanced airplane carrying a U.S. black ops group makes an emergency landing at the base. As Lassen (Reavis Dorsey) explains it, he and his people have just stolen a chemical weapon from the Russians and now, the Russians are desperate to get it back. The weapon is continually referred to as being the CRISPR. The word “CRISPR” is used about a hundred times over the course of this movie. “We have to get the CRISPR!” various characters say. The problem is that CRISPR sounds more like a name for a hamburger grill than a dangerous chemical weapon. Seriously, who wouldn’t want to use the CRISPR to prepare dinner? The CRISPR grills up the best burgers!

With the Russians heading towards the base, it falls on the untested pilots to take to the air and fight them off. At first, no one has much confidence in the pilots. Even the pilots themselves aren’t sure that they can defeat the Russians. But you know who never loses faith? Colonel Herring. The Colonel may be a stern taskmaster but he believes in his pilots!

As you’ve probably already guessed, Top Gunner was meant to be a mockbuster of Top Gun: Maverick. However, because the release of Top Gun: Maverick was continually delayed by the COVID lockdowns, Top Gunner was actually released on video a full two years before Maverick made it into theaters. That makes it all the more interesting that Top Gunner is all about preventing an enemy nation from using a chemical weapon that, we’re told, could cause a pandemic if released upon humanity. In a world where COVID didn’t (allegedly) escape from that lab and cause the world to come to a halt, Top Gunner‘s story would probably be described as being implausible. However, in our current pandemic culture, it’s tempting to look at the pilots in a film like Top Gunner and say, “Where were you when we needed you?”

As you’ve probably already guessed, the budget of Top Gunner was nowhere close to the budget for Top Gun or Top Gun: Maverick. As opposed to those two films, one never gets the feeling that the pilots in Top Gunner are actually flying their planes or risking their lives to get the shot. The film’s plot also never makes a whole lot of sense. But the action moves quickly and, as always, Eric Roberts is fun to watch. His hair is perhaps a bit too long for an Air Force colonel and there are a few times when he seems to be struggling to hide his amusement at some of his dialogue. But, for the most part, Roberts delivers his lines with the proper amount of authority. At last count, Eric Roberts has over 700 credits to his name. Top Gunner is certainly not the best film that Roberts has ever appeared in but it’s not the worst either. Mostly, it’s a film just makes you happy that, no matter what else happens, Eric Roberts endures.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

It may seem strange that I would choose to end my series of reviews of films that feature politics and politicians by reviewing Persecuted, an obscure film from 2014. After all, Shattered Politics started out with D.W. Griffith’s Abraham Lincoln. Over the past three weeks, I’ve reviewed everything from Mr. Smith Goes To Washington to The Phenix City Story to Dr. Strangelove to The Godfather to Nashville to Once Upon A Time In America to The Aviator. I have been lucky enough to review some of the greatest films ever made. And now, at the end of this series, I find myself reviewing Persecuted, a film that has a score of 0% over on Rotten Tomatoes.

Consider that for a moment.

As I sit here typing out this sentence, not a single critic has given Persecuted a good review. And I will admit right now that I’m not going to be the first. Persecuted is cheap-looking, heavy-handed, melodramatic, histrionic, foolish, silly, preachy, predictable, strident, and just about every other possible criticism that comes to mind. If the film is redeemed by anything, it’s that it is full of good actors who do the best that they can with characters that are either seriously underwritten or ludicrously overwritten.

Persecuted takes place in the near future. Sen. Donald Harrison (Bruce Davison) has written something called the Faith and Fairness Act, which would basically require churches to provide equal time to other religions and would make it illegal to suggest that only one religion has all the answers. How exactly that would work, I’m not sure. However, a big part of Harrison’s bill is that, in exchange for giving up any claim to having all the answers, churches will now get money from the federal government. As a result, a lot of church leaders have sold out and announced their support for the bill.

However, evangelist John Luther (James Remar) refuses to support the bill. As we’re told when Luther first appears, he’s a recovering alcoholic and drug addict who used to be a professional gambler. But then he found faith and he’s now the most popular man in the country. Or, at least, he is until he’s drugged by the government and framed for murdering a prostitute.

So now, Luther is on the run. He has to evade capture, prove his innocence, and reveal the truth about Harrison and his shadowy backers. Helping Luther out is his father, an Episcopalian priest who is played by former real-life Presidential candidate Fred Thompson. (Thompson, incidentally, is a very good actor and brings a lot of conviction and authority to his role.) Not helping Luther are the former leaders of his church, one of whom is played by character actor Dean Stockwell.

I’ll admit right now that, as familiar and talented as all four of them may be, James Remar, Bruce Davison, Fred Thompson, and Dean Stockwell are hardly big stars and you really can’t blame any of them for presumably taking a job strictly for the money. That said, it’s still odd to see such good actors appearing in a film like Persecuted and they all deserve at least a little bit of credit for doing their best with the material that they had to work with. However, my favorite performance came from Brad Stine, who plays glib preacher who betrays Luther. Stine is just so sleazy and hyperactive that he’s a lot of fun to watch.

Now, while Persecuted is obviously a faith-based film, it’s plot actually has more in common with the paranoia movies of the 70s than it does with Left Behind. John Luther is a guy who knows the truth and has been framed as a result and he spends nearly the entire film on the run. If anything, this is a film that will probably appeal more to conspiracy theorists than to Christians. But, judging from the film, the conspiracy that’s trying to destroy John Luther doesn’t appear to be very competent. How else do you explain that John Luther — the most famous man in the world — manages to easily evade capture despite the fact that he spends most of the film wandering around in broad daylight with dried blood on his face. At one point, he even calls his wife and has a conversation with her. “Ah!” I thought, “this is where we’ll discover that the conspiracy is listening in on the conversation!” But no, that didn’t happen. In fact, his wife talked to him while, in the background, two cops searched their house. “The police are looking for you,” the wife says but neither one of the police officers seems to hear her. Apparently, it didn’t seem to occur to any of them that John Luther might call his wife. For a paranoia film to work, you have to feel like the film’s hero is in constant danger and Persecuted never succeeded in doing that. How can anyone be scared of a conspiracy that can’t even handle the basics?

Persecuted is not a good film but, in its own unfortunate way, it is a relevant one. Much as how the first film I reviewed for Shattered Politics, D.W. Griffith’s Abraham Lincoln, told us a lot about America in the 1930s, Persecuted tells us a lot about how America is viewed by its citizens in the 21st Century. Persecuted is a film that insists that our leaders can’t be trusted, that your friends will betray you if ordered to do so by those in authority, and that everything bad will come disguised as something good. It’s not exactly an optimistic view of politics or America but then again, these are the times that we live in. It’s been a long time since Billy Jack went to Washington. It’s been even longer since Mr. Smith first showed up.

Now, instead, all we have is Bruce Davison telling us, “You thought you were bigger than the system and you’re not!”

And, on that note, Shattered Politics comes to an end! I’ve had a lot of fun writing this series of 94 reviews and I hope that you’ve enjoyed reading them! If there’s any conclusion that I think can be drawn from these 94 films, it’s that politicians will always betray you and politics will always depress you but movies will always be there to lift you back up.

If I had to choose between voting and watching a movie, I would pick a movie every time. Fortunately enough, I live in a country where I am allowed to do both.