Downdraft (1996) (TV)

User Rating:

3.9/10   

Director:

Michael Mazo

Writer:

Chris Hyde (writer)

Genre:

Action | Drama

Plot Keywords:

Czechploitation

Cast

Vincent Spano	...	Jack
Kate Vernon	...	Alexa
Paul Koslo	...	Gen. Devlin
John Novak	...	Standish
William S. Taylor	...	Rudy
Sandra P. Grant	...	Babe
John Pyper-Ferguson	...	Spike
Sean Fuller	...	Hawkins
Jan Nemejovsky	...	Doc
Michael Splechta	...	Mikey
Gavin Stewart	...	Private #1
Dave Ulrich	...	Private #2 (as Jiri Svoboda)
Zdenek Maryska	...	LaGrange
William Rose	...	Sergeant #1
Kerry Sears	...	Sergeant #2

MPAA:

Rated R for action violence and language.

Runtime:

101 min

Country:

Canada | Czech Republic

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Australia:MA | Argentina:16 | Germany:18 (video premiere) | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Prague, Czech Republic

Company:

North American Pictures

Movie Connections:

Edited into Escape Velocity (1998)

TOO COMMONPLACE TO ACCEPT

In this picture, a Canadian production shot in the Czech Republic near Prague, Vincent Spano portrays a Special Forces colonel interned within a military prison for false charges, whom is asked, as exchange for his freedom, to reassemble and guide an old unit of his command into a bunker, represented as being in Virginia, wherein a demented scientist, Stewart LaGrange, has fashioned a computer system, Minotaur, from which he threatens to launch nuclear projectiles at Russia and China, thereby commencing a Third World War. Whereupon the small group of seven intrepids faces a surfeit of obstacles, most troublesome of which, if memory contributes no disservice, include a killer cyborg (whose anima has been fused with the mind of LaGrange), a booby trap consisting of a hydrogen bomb, a nuclear reactor on its way to a meltdown, and a traitorous Army general above ground who does all he can to hamstring the mission through murder and computer system sabotage. All of which is considerable with which to deal for the little band on its way to a hopefully simple confiscation of a few computer chips, and the film is very briskly paced with one peril-packed episode quickly following another of attempts by the heroes to find cover from the apparently undestroyable machine gun operating cyborg. The dimensions of the unit's task should be more than sufficient for any troupe to manage, and ordinarily concentration of those involved would likely be fixed upon matters before them, but those parties responsible for the script seemingly fancy that romantic entanglements and other intrarelationships among these incipient saviours of world peace shall be in place, to an incessant flow of mawkishly embarrassing as well as inapposite dialogue. This failure of imagination contributes to a superficial and often confusing scenario, plainly not clarified by deficient post-production editing; however, the presence of some capable actors is somewhat diverting, there is a well-orchestrated score by Peter Allen, and Danny Nowak cinematographer, gives the action scenes some flavour of realism, albeit in the face of an absurd plot.