The Clown: Payday  (2005) -
from director Sebastian Vigg, this action thriller about a masked vigilante is a spin-off production
from the 1996 TV movie, Der Clown, and subsequent German TV series which ran for six seasons (a
total of 46 episodes) from 1998 - 2001.
In the aftermath of a robbery, there's an award-winning stunt sequence in which a TV-news helicopter
(a Bell 407) follows the police chase, and narrowly avoids being hit by several damaged cop cars when
the bad guys drop grenades on a deserted main highway. In slow motion, burning cars emerge from the
explosion's smoke cloud, flying left and right, and hurtling straight over the low-hovering chopper.
After rescuing a female hostage, the heroes get another Bell 407 helicopter (from Rhein Flyers), and
return to the shopping mall for a showdown with the villains. Following a shootout, the chopper pilot
scoops heroine Leah (Eva Habermann) from the car park, and then hero Max, alias the Clown (Sven Martinek),
jumps his stolen motorbike off the mall's rooftop and grabs onto the helicopter skids. When hit by the
bad guy's machine-gunfire, the 407 is forced to make an emergency landing on a nearby building, and our
three heroes leap to safety, easily surviving the convincing slow-mo crash 'n' burn scene.
Next up, there's a MBB Bölkow Bo-105C, used by the heroes to reach the gold reserve storage,
from where the villains steal a big truckload of bullion. Army guards shoot anti-aircraft rockets
at the chopper, so pilot Dobbs (Thomas Anzenhoffer) does a series of evasive loops and quick turns,
leading the heat-seeker back to its military launcher. When heroine Leah is re-captured by the gang
of thieves, hero Max jumps from the Bölkow onto the escaping lorry to perform a daring rescue. Now
the villains shoot down the pursuing helicopter, forcing it to land right on top of their lorry. When
the getaway vehicle drives beneath a flyover and the chopper hits this road bridge, it's knocked off its
perch and blows up (in an impressive mix of special effects).
Having made their escape to Rhein Flyers' airfield, the bad guys order Dobbs to load part of the
haul of gold onto a Bell 205A-1 'Huey', and then force him to pilot the machine at gunpoint, although
the burden of loot keeps this helicopter flying low to the ground, at first. Leah drives a fast car
from which Max jumps up into the Huey, and the fight between our Clown 'superhero' and top villain
ends with a deadly fall to the ground. While the heroine's speeding car prevents the villains' cargo
plane from taking off the runway, Max unfastens a pallet of bullion stashed in the Huey, Dobbs banks
the helicopter, and loose gold bricks are tipped onto the plane's wings and fuselage, causing its
destruction in a huge explosion, which obviously kills the remaining baddies.
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