Synopsis
Air America was the CIA's private airline operating in Laos during the Vietnam War, running anything and everything from soldiers to foodstuffs for local villagers. After losing his pilot's license, Billy Covington is recruited into it, and ends up in the middle of a bunch of lunatic pilots, gun-running by his friend Gene Ryack, and opium smuggling by his own superiors.
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Cast
- Mel GibsonGene Ryack
- Robert Downey Jr.Billy Covington
- Nancy TravisCorinne Landreaux
- Ken JenkinsMajor Donald Lemond
- David Marshall GrantRob Diehl
- Lane SmithSenator Davenport
- Art LaFleurJack Neely
- Ned EisenbergPirelli
- Marshall BellO.V.
- David BoweSaunders
Recommendations
- 80
Variety
Spectacular action sequences and engaging performances by Mel Gibson and Robert Downey Jr make this big-budgeter entertaining and provocative. - 60
Empire
While Gibson and Downey work well together, Air America does tend to be slightly overcooked in the cheap laugh department at the expense of a meandering storyline. - 60
Washington Post
Roger Spottiswoode's Air America is partly glorious, partly junk, but unfortunately not in equal parts. - 50
TV Guide Magazine
Air America comes on like a noisy, overproduced sitcom pilot. - 50
Los Angeles Times
Air America is far from a disgrace, but it's so rare to see a film with this much panoramic verve that you want it to deliver the real goods and not this cargo-load of tinkertoy war-is-heck ironies. [10 Aug 1990] - 33
Entertainment Weekly
The movie has no script, and even the better gags - like one in which a couple of the pilots scribble away at coloring books in the backseat of a plane - could have been staged more vividly. - 25
Rolling Stone
The movie that might have been goes down in flames. - 25
Boston Globe
The concept of Air America is refreshing, but its enactment goes nowhere fast. [10 Aug 1990]
