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A GUIDE TO HELICOPTERS IN CINEMA & TELEVISION |
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Paradise, Hawaiian Style (1966) -
"helicopters, Elvis style! Elvis Presley
sings as he 'pilots' his Bell 47J around the islands of Hawaii. This movie will kill you
if you try and watch it..." - NATHAN DECKER Passenger 57 (1992) - a chopper is used as exec transport by an airline security officer (Tom Sizemore) in this enjoyably silly hijacking thriller. The Patriot (1998) - Dean Semler's vaguely sci-fi thriller has Steven Seagal as a ranch owner fighting to preserve his land from being a testing ground for biological weapons. When a viral outbreak starts killing the local population, a US Army bio-war quarantine operation sends airborne troops and scientists into a small western town. It looks as if the production only had a pair of Bell 206 machines, so the helicopters carrying soldiers and medical teams are re-used in different shots to give the illusion of many arrivals. In the closing sequence, a JetRanger flies the hero and his daughter to safety, and a 'hippie' Huey drops flower petals (which provide a cure for the disease!) all over the town. Patriot Games (1992) - based on Tom Clancy's novel, this political thriller features a live-feed visual from an infrared spy satellite that reveals a helicopter assault by commando troops on the terrorists' desert camp in north Africa, as American agents (including the hero played by Harrison Ford) watch the operation in real-time at their CIA base.
The Peacemaker  (1997)
- George Clooney's US agent leads three military helicopters into Russian airspace, while
in pursuit of a truckload of stolen nukes. One chopper is destroyed in the air by a Soviet
missile, before the remaining machines intercept their target and force the lorry to crash
on a river bridge. Later, another chopper scans the streets of New York for the radiation
leak from a backpack atomic bomb being carried by the villain.The Perfect Storm (2000) - this fishing boat tragedy boasts a spectacular, but digitally generated, scene of a rescue helicopter ditching into the ocean, when it runs dry after failing to link-up with a tanker plane for midair refuelling. The whole sequence is stylishly done, but remains wholly unconvincing. Featured helicopter is the Sikorsky HH-60G Pavehawk (from 129th Rescue Wing, California Air National Guard). A Perfect World (1993) - "as it's set in the 1960s, director Clint Eastwood employed a vintage Bell 47J-2 for his movie." - NATHAN DECKER The Philadelphia Experiment (1984) - Stewart Raffill's time-travel odyssey has a couple of WWII sailors accidentally transported forward to the 1980s, where they are spooked by modern aircraft - including a helicopter, which emerges from the dark sky like a UFO but crashes off-screen and explodes, after the timewarp causes an electrical discharge. Picasso Trigger (1988) - this glam action movie by Andy Sidaris has a chase scene in Dallas that ends when a rocket fired from the villains' helicopter destroys the federal agents' car. The Plague Dogs (1982) - Richard Rosen's animated feature film (based on Richard Adams' novel) has images of a Sikorsky S-62. "Although sent to track the dogs, the helicopter finds the corpse of the bounty hunter (who fell off a cliff) hired by the lab to kill the escaped animals. Eventually the military is called in, and another S-62 chases our canine heroes down to the beach." - BILL HIERS
Platoon (1986) - Oliver Stone's best Vietnam war movie features helicopters in several key scenes, including a battlefield medevac operation. Plato's Run (1998) - this low-budget noir thriller about mercenaries has an arms dealer (Roy Scheider) enter his security compound via a private helicopter, and gunmen shooting from a chopper at the escaping heroes (led by Gary Busey), during a boat chase through the waterways of Florida. Police Story 3: SuperCop (1994)
- has a transport chopper land on a tennis court, and another one that flies out of the
Thai jungle, before the film's main rotary action during a raid on the prison guards' van,
with a hostage ploy. The hero's girlfriend (Maggie Cheung) is thrown out of a low-flying
helicopter into street traffic, and the airborne gunman shooting at the heroine (Michelle
Yeoh, billed as Kahn), blows up a stunt car. The 'supercop' hero (Jackie Chan) jumps off
a roof to grab onto a helicopter's rope ladder for a hanging ride above Kuala Lumpur, and
then the chopper is forced to land on a moving train, before it gets smashed from its
perch by a bridge over the railway tracks.
Predator (1987) - in John McTiernan's exciting SF-horror adventure, Arnold Schwarzenegger's super-macho commando team are dropped off in the dense jungle by military choppers. Primal Species (aka: Carnosaur 3, 1997) - an elite team of US Army commandos use a Bell UN-1N Twin Huey as transport to a terrorist hideout. Although the helicopter is not directly involved in the Special Forces' assault, the camera work and shots of its takeoff and landing are exemplary.
The Prize Of Peril (1983) - even before The Running Man, this clever French version of the manhunt TV gameshow idea features helicopter pursuit of the intended victims, so that viewers do not miss any of the violent action. The Professionals (1977-83) - British TV action series concering an elite anti-terrorist police unit called C.I.5, this had occasional use of helicopters as air support for the ex-cop and SAS heroes' frequent car chases. In one episode, Foxhole On The Roof, a gunman threatens a hospital from his sandbag bunker on another building, but the sniper in a police helicopter fails to shoot the bad guy. Proof Of Life (2000) - a
timely chopper escape during the opening scene (supposedly in Czechnya) has the hostage-negotiator
hero (Russell Crowe) picked up (by W-3A Sokol helicopter) just in time to avoid a dangerous shootout.
Later, another helicopter drops the hero's team of mercenary soldiers into a Latin American jungle
region, and then returns - when their mission is over - to airlift some rescued kidnap victims
to safety."The 'fictional' South American country was actually Ecuador. The Ecuadorian Air Force supplied the Eurocopter (Aerospatiale) Gazelle and AS332 Super Puma helicopters for the production." - NATHAN DECKER / IAN VINCENT FRAIN
The Puppet Masters (1994) - the brawl between hero and villain aboard a helicopter provides an exciting aerial stunt for the finale of this SF conspiracy thriller about alien parasites taking over USA. Putney Swope (1969) - "this is a weird one, a tale of the swingin' 1960s... We see a Bell 47J-2 helicopter owned by some cool hep cat, painted in two-tone, with a skull and crossbones, and a Confederate flag adorning the sides." - NATHAN DECKER |
