Jamie
I’m hoping one of these days we’ll get a real dilemma between Citizen Kane and the BMT film of the week. Alas, on September 11th, 1991 Citizen Kane aired on AMC at 3pm. At 1:30am, in the wee hours of the morning, you were treated to Navy SEALs on Showtime. No conflict there (other than the intense conflict depicted on your early 90’s TV). At that very time, though, both HBO and Cinemax were also starting their showings of a couple other 1990-1991 films. HBO had the thrilling Women & Men 2, while Cinemax had the 1990 film Flashback. So how do you choose? The Times fortunately gives you a little synopsis for each film. Women & Men 2 gets the most extensive: “Three couples.” Wow, one more than I thought. So that’s promising. Navy SEALs gives it to you straight with just the word “Hostages,” wonder if they’ll be saved? Finally Flashback gives you the very mysterious single word descriptor, “Splinters.” … huh. So what do we choose? Obviously for this exercise it would be Flashback cause that is lunacy and we’d have to figure out what “Splinters” means in this context. But I think Navy SEALs is almost definitely the right choice for BMT.
To recap, Biehn and Sheen and mean machines on a Navy SEAL team. They and their bros are married to their work… literally, cause the first thing we see is one of the team members, Billy, skipping out on his wedding to go on a hostage rescue in the general Mediterranean area. They arrive just in time to save a couple hostages. Unfortunately they don’t recognize a high level terrorist or destroy a bunch of Stinger missiles while doing all that saving. Biehn and Sheen are pissed. They want to get those missiles and so when they are found being smuggled at sea they get in on the action. Unfortunately it was all a ruse! There aren’t any missiles at all! Biehn and Sheen are even more pissed. They begin talking with a beautiful reporter who has had contact with the high level terrorist in the past. She’s reluctant at first to give up any info, but has a change of heart after one of the Stingers is used. She tips him to some contacts she knows that might be helpful. The CIA resists, but end up agreeing to let the SEALs nab one of the contacts when they find out he’s already an asset. When they go in to grab him, though, they get into a firefight (all because of big dumb Sheen) and Billy is killed. They are sad. Like real sad. Biehn has some steamy sex with the journalist but his sadness persists. The only thing that will alleviate it is destroying those Stingers. With their location provided by the contact, it’s time to bash some skulls. And skulls, they are bashed. Explosions galore. A few of the SEALs are killed and while the Stingers are destroyed Biehn is hurt badly. But Sheen won’t let him die and they are able to escape to safety. THE END.
This is an extremely dumb movie. Very much a knock off Top Gun film of the late 80’s/early 90’s variety, like Fire Birds, Air America, Flight of the Intruder, Iron Eagle, etc. Just before these films were relegated to the depth of stock footage dreck that producers were selling straight-to-video and overseas in high numbers a few years later. This is still a big budget film, but give credit to those straight-to-video creators cause they so effectively knocked off these movies that now something like Navy SEALs feels like low budget garbage by association. It’s fun, though. Lots of BMT films are no fun at all, but this one is just silly war fluff. Come for all that silly war junk and stay for the ludicrous golf scene in the middle (not to mention almost everything that Charlie Sheen wears in the film).
Hot Take Clam Bake! Why didn’t they remotely destroy the Stinger missiles? We know exactly where they are, there are no hostages, and they are located in what is clearly an extremely hot warzone. Even better, whoever is fighting can take out those Stingers for us. They know exactly where they are. But noooooo, Biehn and Sheen can’t help but get directly involved as if they are the only SEAL team on the planet… and then like four Navy SEALs die in a non-war time raid involving the destruction of inanimate objects. Absolute disastrous result. I’m not going to say I’m the most qualified to make this decision, but seems like we got institutional failure on our hands top to bottom. Hopefully Biehn’s pivot to a journalism career works out for him. Hot Take Temperature: Sliver.
Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! Navy Seals? More like Craven Heels, amirite? Top Gun inspired a generation of military recruiters that they too could make a homoerotic military propaganda film. Let’s go!
- This film is filled, top to bottom, with some amazing stunts. Credit where credit is due. The sky dive, jumping off the bridge, and the water stunts involving the submarine were all on the level of much better films like Top Gun.
- I wouldn’t go so far as to say Charlie Sheen is bad in this film, but a lot of the acting feels television-y (which at the time I suppose was a synonym for “bad”). But Sheen has a few moments where it seems like he almost having a genuine adrenaline / stress response which was a cool reaction and probably straight from the writer (who was a Navy SEAL).
- If I were to point to one major flaw I would say that everything seems like a “set”. Especially the ending where the “Lebanon” city looks like a square block of shooting space dressed up as Lebanon.
- Actually, strike that. The major flaw is the borderline racist (but yet inevitable) portrayal of the terrorists in the film.
- Actually, strike that. Or, better yet, just strike out the word “borderline” in the last sentence.
- The golf scene is insane. A basketball scene last week. A golf scene this week? Awesome.
- It is only made better that apparently the studio was like “we’re missing something, play some touch football” and Bill Paxton was like “no, that’s too close to the volleyball scene in Top Gun” and shot the golf stuff himself. And then ironically Top Gun 2 they do play touch football (kind of, don’t get me started on that).
- As far as a review I think I’ll leave it by saying that Fire Birds, this, a bunch of lower level things like Delta Force, etc. they are such an odd reaction in a post-Cold War world (or at least a world where Russia seemed to be close to defeat). The military was really terrified that without a big enemy recruiting numbers were going to fall off a cliff huh?
- Best Product Placement (What?) for the Ready Room in Virginia Beach? At the very least them sucking down Bud Heavies while playing golf works. A rare Setting as a Character (Where?) for either Virginia or Lebanon, take your pick. Solid McGuffin (Why?) for the Stinger missiles, a nice objective for every mission in the film. Closest to BMT I think, like Fire Birds it is just nonsensical military trash to be funny/fun.
Read about the sequel in the Quiz. Cheerios,
The Sklogs
Bad Movie Twins 