4/11/08: Into The Sun (1992)We noticed when
Into The Sun opened in theaters. We mainly noticed that it was playing in theaters. The film was clearly a low-budget knock-off of what was an undistinguished film to begin with—that being the action/comedy
The Hard Way, in which Michael J. Fox played a spoiled Hollywood actor tagging along after NYC homicide detective James Woods.
Into The Sun had Anthony Michael Hall as a spoiled Hollywood actor tagging along after Air Force fighter pilot Michael Paré. This one should've premiered on the shelves of our local video store. We didn’t bother lining up at the box office.
But then the film's trailer showed up on some moldy old VHS tape we were watching the other day, and
Into The Sun suddenly seemed promising. It turns out to be a schizoid mess, but certainly worth an entry here.
The film opens with Captain Paul Watkins (Paré) flying around and being all cocky in the cockpit. He’s a real maverick, although his call name is “Shotgun.” He’s over international waters when he’s briefly engaged by hostile aircraft. His cohort Lt. DeCarlo is ready to open fire, but Watkins keeps a cool head. They report back to base, where they get yelled at by their commanding officer: “They would like nothing better than to provoke an international incident—I mean, to fuel their propaganda war!”
Watkins then learns he’s been assigned to be a technical advisor to movie star Tom Slade. (That would be Anthony Michael Hall.) Slade’s arrived at the airbase with obnoxious manager Mitchell Burton, and Terry Kiser has a great time in the role. He breezily refers to a female major as “sweetheart,” and goes around rattling off the titles of Slade’s box-office hits. Those include
Lightning Strikes and
Lightning Strikes Again.
Burton is very happy with Watkins as Slade’s role model. “Tom wants somebody who’s not a Hollywood type,” the manager explains. Yes, Paré is much more a direct-to-video type. Did we mention how weird it is that this film played in theaters?
From there, the plot goes on for a while as light comedy. Slade explains to Watkins that he “wants to get under the skin of the fighter jock mentality.” He adds that acting requires a lot of self-sacrifice. Slade then annoys his new pilot pal by being really good at flight simulation and endurance tests. We also establish that the airbase is in Sicily, and the planes “are flying cover for the whole Mediterranean”—including the Persian Gulf.
Watkins finally gets ticked off at Slade hitting on his love interest (that would be the female major), and decides to treat the smug actor to some daredevil flying. They’re zooming crazily along when some of Watkins’ fellow pilots are fired upon by that anonymous Arab enemy. This part really showcases the film’s budgetary limits; one plane explodes in the exact same manner that Roger Corman would’ve shot the scene in 1958.
Anyway, Watkins defies orders and flies into combat with his civilian in tow. The same evil pilot that buzzed Watkins earlier shoots the two out of the sky. (We know it’s the same evil pilot because of the dragon on his helmet.) Watkins and Slade eject out of their doomed plane and start wandering the desert. Meanwhile, the evil pilot (face still unseen) is playing backgammon and answering questions from his superior.
“Are you sure the Americans violated our borders?”
“That’s what you’ll tell the United Nations, isn’t it?”
The pilot adds that there’s a reason he didn’t shoot the two Americans out of the sky. He thought the Arabs would want them alive for propaganda purposes. Enemy soldiers are sent out to find the two, and Watkins has to keep Slade from flagging down a passing patrol. “This is so juvenile,” complains Slade. “You’d rather die from thirst than ask for help from this so-called ‘enemy.’”
This is where the film starts to get good. Slade and Watkins are saved by wandering Bedouins who love country music. They don’t know much about movie stars, though, and decide to hand the two Americans over to the evil enemy—you know, the ones who are from whatever Arabic land this is. Quit asking.
One of the Arabs in the enemy camp recognizes Slade, so it’s a particularly good day for the propaganda machine. Watkins is taken off to be tortured, while Slade is given a script to read for the cameras: “I see now that the American imperialist regime must desist from crushing innocent nations under its iron shoe.”
Slade has some qualms. “Who writes this shit?” he asks. “It’s not working for me. Can I say ‘boot’ instead of ‘shoe?’”
Meanwhile, Watkins has learned that the evil pilot—who we’ll now call Dragon—is an American who lacks the Air Force’s required 20/20 vision. The drug tests were a problem, too. “You’ve got to get over this flag waving business,” explains the bespectacled traitor. “It’s all just one world, and I just want to fly, man.”
(Dragon’s played by underrated genre veteran Linden Ashby, who’s doing a fine Bruce Dern impersonation here.)
Slade is brought before a video camera. The soldiers drag Watkins into the room. Watkins tells Slade not to read the script, and gets pummeled for his trouble. Slade addresses the camera:
This is Tom Slade. I’m here of my own free will. I have a very important message for the leaders of the United States, and the people of the world—You guys ought to nuke this fucking place off the map!The enemy doesn’t appreciate improvisation. Watkins is threatened with more torture, and Slade goes on to read all that stuff about the American imperialist regime. Cut to the female major, Lt. DeCarlo, and Mitchell Burton watching Slade deliver the speech on television.
“This is really terrible,” says Burton. “I mean, this is going to kill his career.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” says DeCarlo. “Everyone will know it’s fake.”
“I’m not talking about that,” replies Burton. “I’m talking about his reading! I begged the kid, begged him—‘Pease don’t give up the acting lessons!’”
Dragon is outside of Watkins’ cell, also watching the Slade video. “Cable news,” Dragon muses. “What would we do without it?”
It’s 1992, so we know which cable network Dragon is watching.
Fortunately, it’s not so late in ’92 that the Air Force isn’t planning a strike against the enemy. They’d arrive too late, though, since Watkins is set to be executed at dawn. It’s only been postponed because the Arabs ran out of videotape.
The Arabs don’t know that Slade has been freed during the night by the Bedouins. The nomads have figured out that Slade is worth more money being ransomed to Hollywood. They return to save Watkins, but only because Slade has convinced them that the pilot is heir to a Big Tobacco fortune.
From there, the film goes back to being kind of dull. Slade runs around like Lawrence of Arabia, our heroes escape, and Dragon gets blown up in that same Corman style. Nothing special there—except for when DeCarlo gets an enemy plane lined up in his sights. “Time to face Mecca,” he declares.
Unfortunately, that’s the enemy plane that Watkins and Slade are using to escape. There’s still a happy ending—if only in that actor Brian Haley was able to keep working in Hollywood after delivering that line about facing Mecca. Maybe
Into The Sun didn’t play in L.A. theaters.
Make it your own: Into The Sun is probably more fun to read about than to watch. Keep in mind that the film is written by the same team that went on to script 2003’s surprisingly good
Terminator 3, followed by 2004’s truly awful
Catwoman. You can still get fairly cheap
VHS copies—and Linden Ashby really does a good Dern impersonation.
