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A GUIDE TO HELICOPTERS IN CINEMA & TELEVISION |
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Half Past Dead (2002) - Steven Seagal plays an undercover cop inside Alcatraz
(footage used from Michael Bay's The Rock, 1998) in this action movie shot on
locations in Berlin - where a no-fly zone after 4.30 pm (due to 11th September attacks),
caused problems for night scenes with helicopters. A Bell LongRanger brings a US Judge
(Linda Thorson) to witness the execution of gold robber, Lester (Bruce Weitz); a Bell
UH-1 Huey, airborne during a stormy whiteout, crashes into a skylight roof of the prison
(mostly CGI visuals) and remains stuck in the rafters, from where the hero (Seagal) uses
its radio to call for Special Forces backup, until the Huey wreckage finally drops to
the floor - during a climactic gun battle - and explodes on impact inside the main cellblock.
Later, some kidnappers (led by Morris Chestnut) holding the Judge as hostage escape from
custody in a Bell 412 chopper. They throw the Judge out over San Francisco Bay in an
effort to evade FBI pursuit, but the villains run out of luck when freed convict Lester
accepts his fate (as a condemned man), and becomes a suicide bomber to destroy their
helicopter in midair with yet another spectacular CGI display. Hamburger Hill (1987) - "Vietnam War movie where a US Army Huey comes along and shoots at American troops on the hill of the title." - WINNIE LEUNG Hands Of Steel (aka: Mani di Pietra, 1985) - Sergino Martino's lumbering sci-fi actioner, about a bionic agent on the run from his creators, features two helicopters used by the bad guys to chase the cyborg hero (Daniel Greene) across Arizona, and attack him from the air. In the extended finale, the hero shoots the gunman in the Hughes 500 chopper, and the low-flying Bell JetRanger pursues the wounded heroine (Janet Agren) when a truck driver rescues her. Shortly after, the villains' boss (John Saxon) uses the JetRanger to follow the escaping hero down a canyon river to a factory, where their predictable shootout occurs.
Hard Target (1993) - in director John Woo's first American cinema production, the bad guys (led by Lance Henriksen) use a helicopter to bring a team of four killers into the heart of the New Orleans bayou, to join their manhunt for the hero (Jean-Claude Van Damme). Harley Davidson And The Marlboro Man (1991) - "in this action movie by Simon Wincer, there is a scene of a Bell 222UB painted black, with a small chain-gun shooting at a building. (I am not sure if it is the same Bell that was used in the Redwolf episode of Airwolf and Judgment Day episode of The A-Team.)" - COREY MUGAAS Harper Valley P.T.A. (1978) - "a late-model Bell 47G helicopter is seen carrying a banner as the end credits roll." - NATHAN DECKER Harsh Realm (1999) - in the first episode of this TV sci-fi action series created by Chris Carter, the hero's unnerving entry to a US Army virtual reality war zone simulator features an Aerospatiale (Eurocopter) SA341 Gazelle in ground attack mode (fitted with fake TOW missile tubes), where it strafes enemy soldiers on the battlefield. Unfortunately, Harsh Realm was not a success, and the show was cancelled after only nine episodes. Heat (1995) - Michael Mann's cops 'n' robbers drama has police helicopter surveillance following a gang of thieves. The crooks evade these aerial watchdogs to pull off a bank heist by parking at the airport where choppers are not allowed to fly. HeliCops (aka: Einsatz über Berlin, 1998-2000) - this German TV series was about the exploits of special police unit, Astro-Kommando - AK1, whose primary hardware was a hi-tech armoured helicopter (Eurocopter EC-135). Reportedly, the series ran for 30 hour-long episodes, and its mix of criminal, paramilitary and espionage plots attracted a cult audience. "I saw this for a laugh when still living in Germany, the chopper was CGI in most action sequences, performing impossibly slick moves sometimes." - BERND BIEGE Helicopter (1993) - this sports drama is about a young basketball player nicknamed "helicopter"! The Helicopter Spies (1967) - "this is actually a movie edited from a two-part episode of the great spy TV series The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (1964-68). The most impressive stunt is a man descending from a Bell 47G-3 helicopter onto the top of a speeding train." - NATHAN DECKER Hellfighters (1968) - "in this classic John Wayne picture about oil-well firefighters, a Bell 47J-2 helicopter is seen at the beginning of the film, and several Bell 47Gs are seen near the climax, as the heroes venture into the jungles of Venezuela. There is also a rare Kaman K-225 'synchoropter' in one shot." - NATHAN DECKER Highlander 2 (1991) - has choppers on the scene during a world-spanning operation to erect an anti-radiation shield around the Earth.
The Highwayman (1987) - Sam (Flash Gordon) Jones tackles a gang of villains as a vigilante crime-fighter using hi-tech transport (a customised 18-wheeler truck), which has a detachable cab that converts into an emergency helicopter. The Hitcher (1986) - in Robert Harmon's stylish road movie, the young hero (C. Thomas Howell) in a stolen cop car is chased by airborne police, but the serial killer (Rutger Hauer) shoots down their low-flying helicopter with a pistol aimed from another moving vehicle, so the chopper drops out of the sky to explode in the path of a highway patrol car, which then crashes into the burning wreckage.
Home Fries (2000) - "this light comedy features a deranged National Guard pilot chasing his brother (Luke Wilson) in a commandeered Bell AH-1 Cobra, and a philandering husband scared into a heart attack by a Cobra hovering above his station wagon." - NATHAN DECKER Homeland Security (2004) - this pilot movie for an unmade TV series, has a Bell 212 Twin Huey used for medevac duty in the Afghan battle scenes. Honey, I Blew Up The Kid (1992) - Disney's sequel to Honey, I Shrunk The Kids (1989) is another comedy fantasy about geeky inventor (Rock Moranis) who creates a 'magic ray' machine that changes the mass of his children. Here, there's a monstrous toddler stomping around Las Vegas, and mad scientist (John Shea) takes to the air in a Bell UH-1 Huey, aiming to shoot tranquiliser darts at the oversized kid. Thankfully, the kid's mom (Marcia Strassman) is also turned into a giant, just in time to stop the bad guy's heinous plan by snatching the helicopter out of the sky and slamming it down on the ground, where the flight crew emerge shaken but uninjured from the wreckage.
[Thanks to Cliff Fleming, of South Coast Helicopters, for supplying the 2 behind-the-scenes pictures above.] Hostage Dallas (1986) - Dwight H. Little's terrorism drama has good helicopter stunts during attempts to thwart the urban disaster of a city being poisoned with nerve gas.
The Hunt For Eagle One (2005) - utterly dismal actioner, shot on HD-video, in the Philippines by Brian Clyde, features US Army helicopters (one is shot down, two rescue choppers blown up by terrorists' missiles) but stupidly mistakes a pair of Sikorsky S-61 machines for Bell UH-1 Hueys in its obvious misuse of stock footage.
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