Narrow Escape (aka: A Thousand Men And A Baby, 1997) - Marcus Cole's TV movie,
about the crew of a US warship 'adopting' a Korean orphan, features Boeing CH-46 Sea Knights
used for ship-to-shore transport duty. Other helicopters appear on screen for scenes on the
ship's main deck.
Narrow Margin (1990)
- Peter Hyams' remake of the 1952 thriller about organised crime has an air strike on
the heroine's isolated mountain cabin in which the bad-guys shoot down a police helicopter
so it nosedives into ground, before the film's action switches to a train as the hero (Gene
Hackman) transports an endangered witness (Anne Archer) to safety.
National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1 (1993) - in a scene copied from Lethal Weapon
2, gunfire from a helicopter destroys a beach trailer residence, but the killers have
attacked the wrong address - so Bruce Willis (in an uncredited cameo), not the film's hero
(Emilio Estevez), surrenders unhappily.
National Treasure (2005) - with Jerry Bruckheimer producing a Disney film starring
Nicolas Cage, you can reasonably expect a slick actioner with a sympathetic, larger-than-life
hero. The film's main aerial sequence (the credited pilot is Alan Purwin) occurs around the USS
Intrepid in New York harbour, where a Bell 206B JetRanger sightseeing-chopper creates a
diversion for the protagonist to escape from FBI custody. The feds are using a blue Eurocopter
EC120B as the "crow's nest" spotter aircraft of their surveillance operation.
The Negotiator (1998) - Samuel Jackson and Kevin Spacey are both good value in this
hostage thriller, which makes commendable use of helicopters when cops to peek in through
tower block windows and see what's happening inside the building before their SWAT teams
storm the scene.
The Nest (aka: Nid de guêpes, 2002) - directed by Florent Emilio
Siri (who went on to make Hostage, starring Bruce Willis) this is basically a
French-made rip-off of
Assault
On Precinct 13. It features a police Eurocopter AS 550 that over flies a warehouse
siege when the cops lose contact with a security transport in which a Euro mafia godfather
is being delivered for trial.
The Net (1998-9) - this TV spin-off, based on Irwin Winkler's 1995 movie, has a trio
of bogus NSA agents on the heroine's trail in a fade US marshal's Bell 206 JetRanger.
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The Net 2.0 (2005) - average technothriller sequel, shot on location on Turkey, features
a rare Eurocopter (Aerospatiale) SA 315B Lama II police helicopter, which hovers over the
climactic scenes, when the heroine finally gets justice, with some help from Interpol agents,
against the villains.
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Never Give Up (1978) - this Japanese action drama from director Junya Sato features
a team of special forces' commandos in training to use 'rapid ropes' for their descent from
a Bell Twin Huey. In the film's climactic mock-battle sequence, a couple of Boeing CH-47
Chinook transports and three UH-1 Hueys are involved in an army field exercise, providing
airborne support for tanks and infantry. During these manoeuvres, another special forces'
squad are deployed from Hueys to hunt down a renegade commando. In the final shootout, a Bell
206 JetRanger tracks down escaping hero Ajisawa (Ken Takakura), and a soldier uses the chopper's
side-mounted machinegun to open fire on him. However, with assault-rifle sharp shooting, the hero
causes the attacking JetRanger to crash into a hillside, where it explodes on impact.
Never Say Never Again (1983) - this enjoyable remake of Thunderball finds 007
(Sean Connery) repeating his mistakes with villains and women, but only features one brief
helicopter scene. In the final reel, after his underground mission, Bond returns to the Bahamas
island, but he does not quite travel in style when he's transported by a Eurocopter (MBB) BO-105,
as he's suspended in a harness on cables dangling beneath the chopper, ready for a quick landing.
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Next (2006) - in this psi-fi thriller based on a novel by Philip K. Dick, the police
and FBI strike teams use Eurocopter AS350-B2 'A-Stars' (from
South Coast Helicopters)
to chase the hero (Nicolas Cage) out of Las Vegas, and follow him to a canyon hideaway. In
the rotary action climax, there are two airborne FBI choppers and another machine (that's
intended for use by nuclear terrorists as their getaway route), which gets hit by gunfire
during the police raid on a dockside building.
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Niagara
(1953) -
"in a great piece of flying and filming,
a large US Coast Guard Sikorsky S-55 plucks a damsel in distress from the brink of Niagara
Falls." - NATHAN DECKER
Nighthawks (1981) - in this drama about terrorism, the hero (Stallone) faces a
ruthless killer (Rutger Hauer), when the villains hijack a cable car and the cops recon
the hostage scene in a police helicopter.
Nightmare At Noon (1988) -
"Nico Mastorakis' movie has an interesting
gunship conversion of a JetRanger helicopter with stub wings and the following weaponry: two
gatling guns (stub wing tips), two 19-shot rocket pods (inner stub wing pylons) and two WWII
vintage 4.5-inch triple bazooka rocket tubes (outer stub wing pylons). Rocky Mountain Helicopters
(of Utah) operated this modified chopper." - COSTAS TSAGANAS
Night Of The Comet (1984) - in this post-holocaust comedy-horror, a helicopter
carries a pair of young female survivors to a secret US military underground bunker.
Night Of The Living
Dead (1968) - in the closing chapter of George A. Romero's seminal horror, the
hunters of the undead are seemingly aided by aerial reconnaissance, when a Brantley B-2
ultra light helicopter flies over the countryside.
The Night The World Exploded (1957) -
"a Bell 47G helps to save
the world in this sci-fi thriller." - NATHAN DECKER
1984 (1984!) - Michael Radford's timely screen adaptation of George Orwell's
nightmare future has a curiously old-fashioned whirlybird used as the spy-in-the-sky.
This footage appears, repeatedly, in the promo-video for Sex Crime by the Eurythmics.
9th Company
(aka: 9 Rota, 2005) - this Russian war film about Afghanistan
features Mil Mi-24 Hind assault helicopters in key scenes. A pair of Hinds fly above mountainous
terrain during the opening credits. Hinds and a Mil Mi-17 Hip gunship appear in the CGI-enhanced
airfield sequence where a transport plane is shot down and crashes spectacularly. Hinds are seen
flying above the armoured column but fail to provide air support when the military vehicles get
attacked. Finally, the Hinds have one big shoot-up in a battle for the heights, during this drama's
somewhat lacklustre climax.
No Escape (aka: Escape From
Absolom, 1994) -
"directed by Martin Campbell, this
sci-fi movie features Russian helicopters used to deliver new inmates and patrol the
waters around the prison island. These are Kamov Ka-27 Helix choppers, modified with
the addition of missile pods and (maybe) a 'fixed gun' on the port side of the forward
fuselage." - COSTAS TSAGANAS
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