adonis98-743-186503 A young pilot finds himself recruited unwittingly into a covert and corrupt CIA airlift organization operating in Vietnam War Era Laos. Air America is a film that you would except that it would work thanks to Mel Gibson and Robert Downey Junior unfortunately the movie doesn't work at all the script is weak and the humor isn't that good and i had to really skip it to the end and just throw it away in the trash and this was so disappointing for me cause i love Gibson movies unfortunately this one wasn't one of them also once again Robert Downey Jr proves to me that he should stick with Iron Man like forever because in everything else? not that good. I give Air America a 4.5 out of 10 it should have been better.

Geoffrey DeLeons This film has all the bells and whistles, but in the end, it is a very obvious and blatant attempt to make light of content that is extremely serious ie: war, civilian deaths, covert ops, drug and gun running. In Air America, we see good acting, a cohesive plot and lots of action involving airplanes, but compared to the movie Con Air, we never really are able to relate to any of the characters in Air America (if you do relate with the pilots, I certainly don't want to know you).Frankly, this movie makes me sick in the way that the movie MASH and Good Morning Vietnam did: Hollywood's attempts to get some laughs out of the horror that is war. In Air America, moreover, we not only see war, but the seedy underbelly of the U.S. political war machine that is the C.I.A. and U.S.A.I.D. Also mentioned in the film is the corporation Dow Chemical, which produced Agent Orange, which was widely sprayed by cargo aircraft in Vietnam and Laos. This sickened and killed thousands, and maybe hundreds of thousands of people. The music in Air America is the big tip-off that the movie is almost like a psy-op: We are led to associate the activity therein with the pop tunes from the 1970's. I really despise the fact that the producers of this movie grotesquely tried to combine the blood-thirsty, amoral pilots and others in this film with the rock and roll songs that were a symbol of resistance to the war at that time. Creedence Clearwater Revival's Run Through The Jungle being the most anti-war and ill-placed of all. Anyone who swallows what this movie is shoveling, thinking it is just "entertainment" needs to re-consider their priorities and possibly develop some spirituality. This movie could have been a potent warning, helping to prevent the C.I.A drug-running that is happening today in Afghanistan, but alas, the U.S. citizenry is not capable of such integrity to demand this.

callanvass Despite his controversial and diminishing status in Hollywood, I'm still a big Mel Gibson fan as an actor. I also like Robert Downey Jr. I've heard how mediocre this movie is over the years from people, and put it off. Well. I can now say I've finally watched it. I now know why I put it off for so long. Gibson & Downey lack efficient chemistry with one another. It doesn't have much action to speak of, and the comedy lacks a big ingredient...laughs!. Air America's two major problems are. 1. It doesn't know what it fully wants to be, and fails to find the proper medium. Instead we get an uneasy mixture of laughs & serious action, which doesn't work at all. 2. The lagging pace issues. There was a few times where I looked at the time, to see how much was left. Mel Gibson seems to be on autopilot sometimes. Others he looks really into it. He has charm and swagger to spare, but it's not his best performance. Robert Downey gives one of his worst performances to date. He wasn't convincing at all, that cocky charisma of his nowhere to be found, here. Nancy Travis doesn't have much screen time, and her character is poorly written. Art LaFleur is actually amusing with his phony tough guy act. Final Thoughts: Talk about a major misfire. It fails an action/adventure, a comedy, and a drama. It has no idea what it fully wants to be, and the result is a mess. You could do worse, but you could also do much better. There is nothing to gain from seeing this movie4.7/10

tenthousandtattoos Easily one of my personal favourite "light-hearted action movies"...Air America takes place in Laos, circa 1969, and follows the exploits of a band of roughneck pilots working for the company of the film's title, flying dangerous cargo drop missions in the unfriendly skies. Billy (Robert Downey Jr) is recruited from his job as a traffic helicopter pilot to join Air America. As he wants to be "down in the action, not up above it" he takes the job and so meets Gene Ryack (Mel Gibson) the unofficial head of the bunch, who is as he puts it an "adrenaline junkie".While the historical accuracy and believability of the story is questionable, that's not why we watch these films, is it? This is a great action movie, with some REAL aerial stuntwork and no bluescreen or CGI, some great one liners, some awesome location photography and some decent humour:"How often do you guys go on a bender like this?" "Oh, this is not a bender. This is just night-time!"Roger Spottiswoode has made some remarkably good action films in his time, light, non-gory violence with some humanity and a decent storyline to boot. He did the wonderful "Turner and Hooch" a year before this, and a year before that did "Deadly Pursuit" (or "Shoot to Kill" i think it was called in the US), and later directed Arnie in "The 6th Day". I enjoy all those movies, find them tense, exciting and lots of fun as Friday-nite-popcorn-flicks.Finally, two things that I admire about this film are the fact there is no cheesy love story thrown in just for the sake of having a love interest for one of the male leads. And the final message delivered in the films closing scenes when Gene ditches his (very lucrative) weapons cache in favour of taking on refugees fleeing a warzone. Great message. Great stuff.