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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  HUNTED

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.

  HIGH  TREASON

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.

rotary action in The Hitcher remake
The Hitcher (2007) - this remake, starring Sean Bean, features an AS355-F2 New Mexico police helicopter. (Thanks to pilot Lance Strumpf for this picture.)

Bell 206 police in Hollywood Homicide Hollywood Homicide (2003) - Ron Shelton's comedy thriller is a buddy movie about mismatched cops (Harrison Ford and Josh Hartnett). The climactic car chase, and rooftop fight scene, is closely observed by so many L.A. TV news helicopters that the lone police chopper (a Bell 206 JetRanger) is unable to guide squad cars in pursuit of fleeing suspects, or attend to aerial surveillance duty, because the airspace is overcrowded!


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.

AS350-B2 A-Star from Hostage Bell 206B JetRanger with 'night sun' from Hostage
Hostage (2005) - routine 'home invasion' drama turns into a derivative yet highly watchable thriller, when car thieves hold a man and two children at gunpoint... unaware, at first, that house-owner (typecast Kevin Pollack) is a wealthy accountant with a stash of cash and incriminating evidence against his mafioso employers. The heroic cop (Bruce Willis, on good form here, despite playing a stereotype with clichéd dialogue) can save the day, of course - but he does not want the local Sheriff's helicopter (a Eurocopter AS 350-B2 A-Star) buzzing around the hillside crime scene throughout the night siege. In the film's most tense sequence, the gang demand a getaway helicopter (a Bell 206B JetRanger with a 'night sun' light, is used by the filmmakers), which is guided by Willis to land in the driveway just outside the house's main gates. The 'A-Star' was also used for aerial filming.
[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.

  HULK

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.

The Hunt For Red October (1989) - in John McTiernan's cold war thriller (based on Tom Clancy's novel), the CIA agent hero Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin) is flown out to his rendezvous at sea by a US Navy SH-3H Sea King helicopter. A later scene, in which the Russian submarine is supposedly 'sunk', features a Sikorsky SH-60B Seahawk, known as LAMPS (Light Airborne Multipurpose System) Mk III.

Two sequels, Patriot Games (1992), and Clear And Present Danger (1994) followed, with Harrison Ford in the leading role. The Ryan character also features in The Sum Of All Fears.
Hunt For Red October
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