Stellead Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Konterr Brilliant and touching

Griff Lees Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

bobbyp1966 Brad Randolph (Carradine) has a lot on his life's plate: he flies aerobatics, is mentoring a protégé in aerobatics and trying to keep him away from air drug-smuggling, has a girlfriend who wants a committed relationship but fears an offspring would be afflicted by the same defective gene which affects his brother, who he loves a great deal. To top it off, he's affected by blackouts which put him at risk in the air, but he flies anyway. Brad comes under further pressure when his girlfriend turns up pregnant, and more so when he comes to the rescue of his protégé, pitting himself and a T-tail Piper Lance against a P-51 Mustang flown by a smuggler in a rather spectacular aerial scene. By the time the dust settles, Brad is ready to compete in an airshow and comes to grips with his worries and his life when he's spared in a plane accident and he meets his new child. Of course, at the end, everything's gonna be alright.Not a bad film, really. It's good to see Carradine in a role other than Kwai Chang Caine.

Checkboard I was an aerobatic instructor in the late 80's and this was my favourite film. That sounds like an inane statement - but when a pilot can tell you they like a film about flying, then you have some idea that the life of flying and the flying itself has been captured with a sympathy which is very rare in flying movies.The drug-running side plot is a shame, as it detracts from the main plot - when it would have been so easy to script enough drama to fill the movie. Filming is without blue screen, many of the pilots are depicted by serious aerobatic flyers of the time, and David Carradine does a very good job.I even like the music.

tubbm I must have seen this film about 100 times. My dad, Terry Tubb, and my grandfather, Walt Tubb were in this film. My dad and grandfather were aerobatics pilots back in the 70's before I was born. My grandfather played one of the judges and also did some of the aerobatics routines in his 'mythical pitts' and my father does a lot of the flying in his pitts special. The thing that most people don't know is that when they filmed Brad's older friend 'walt"'s plane crash scene where he dies, my grandfather Walt Tubb, flew that sequence in his airplane to make it look like he was spinning out of control and falling towards the earth. My grandfather said he got a weird feeling after filming this scene. He died shortly after the film wrapped flying in an airshow where he crashed the very plane he did a 'pretend' crash sequence for. He died before both I was born. I never knew him, and as a young child when I watched this movie, I thought I was watching my grandfather die. It wasn't until I was older that I understood what it really meant.

quiet-4 I remember seeing parts of this movie back in the 80's on Showtime or HBO or The Movie Channel or something like that, and being somewhat taken aback that they were showing aerobatics in prop-driven airplanes in a movie that wasn't a period piece!I had a very difficult time tracking this down to rent, and had to pay a $150.00 deposit when I finally did.The first 10 minutes alone were worth the price of the rental: excellent shots from inside and outside of the cockpit, fairly well edited. Anyone who is remotely interested in aerobatic flying will love this film.As for the rest, the acting was poor and the plot was worse. But the flying made it all worthwhile!PS They did an excellent job of making it look like David Carradine was actually flying the airplane. I assume that they used a two-place Pitts for the inside-cockpit shots, and Mr. Carradine really made it look like he was flying, rather than just being along for the ride! Fung-Ku pilot! It would have been better if they'd had him pack all his belongings in a tiny bedroll and head for the next airport on foot or something else more in the spirit of his old TV show.