Review: Terminal Velocity

Charlie Sheen plays skirt-chasing sky-diving instructor Ditch who takes Nastassja Kinski for her first skydiving lesson, takes his eye off her arse for one second and…splat. Or is something else going on? Yes, something else is going on as an investigating Ditch finds out, and it involves former KGB, Russian gold, and some really nasty criminals (enter a screaming Christopher McDonald) who don’t much like Ditch sticking his nose in their business. Melvin Van Peebles and an uncredited Margaret Colin play Ditch’s comrades (the former a pilot who takes Ditch and his clients out for jumps), whilst a pre-Tony Soprano James Gandolfini plays a nerdy DA investigating the skydiving mishap.

 

More like “Terminal Stupidty”, this air-headed, obnoxious 1994 action flick from director Deran Sarafian (who did far better with 1990’s “Death Warrant”, and less so with “Gunmen”, also from 1994) works best if you’re of the opinion that it’s meant to be tongue-in-cheek. I’m not of that view, and I think for the most part it’s unintentionally stupid in the extreme.

 

Scripted by the usually not-bad David Twohy (co-writer of “The Fugitive”, writer-director of “The Arrival” and “A Perfect Getaway”), it makes the vastly more entertaining “Point Break” look like Dostoyevsky. It’s aggressively stupid from Charlie Sheen’s opening scene skydiving in arseless chaps…to the wrong party. Yeah, OK that was probably meant to be funny, but the rest? The only laugh I felt was genuine was with Sheen’s remarkably casual way of stealing a car. That made me chuckle, but it’s hard to see the intentional humour anywhere else here. For instance, someone fakes their own death in this film, but they don’t go a very smart way about it. For starters, the second plane surely would’ve been obviously visible to one and all. No, this isn’t an action-comedy, it’s just dumb, and worse, it’s loudly dumb. The soundtrack is particularly loud, and lead villain Christopher McDonald (with a horrible peroxide job) follows suit with a performance pitched about the same audio level as Christopher Lloyd’s Judge Doom in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” when he finally revealed his true self. It worked in that film, where Lloyd was creepy as hell, McDonald is just laughably bad and annoying as hell screaming his way through the most obnoxious supporting performance of 1994. It’s a bizarre and major miscalculation with zero menace or threat at all.

 

Charlie Sheen can act a bit when it’s his wont. He has, however, spent 99% of his career not ‘wonting’ to. Also, if your name is Richard as the lead character’s name is here, why would you choose ‘Ditch’ as your nickname of choice? Dick, Rick, Ricky, Richie, Dickie, etc.…but you chose Ditch? On purpose? His character isn’t likeable, and spends most of the film seemingly more concerned with getting into Nastassja Kinski’s pants, even when things are getting all murder-y. Nastassja Kinski, meanwhile is comical without enough indication that she’s doing it on purpose. James Gandolfini probably gives the film’s best performance, and even he’s slightly mannered in addition to having very predictable motives. Melvin Van Peebles is solid, but given so very little to do. I also have no idea why Margaret Colin goes unbilled in a fairly sizeable cameo, nor why she looks like a 10 year-old boy. Rance Howard has a particularly dopey cameo, but someone’s sure to find it cool to see three acting families represented in the one film (Sheen/Estevez, Van Peebles, and Howard). The film is well-shot and the skydiving scenes well-staged, but if they weren’t, the film likely wouldn’t have been released at all.

 

Moronic, and even worse, aggressive in its ineptitude this obnoxious film doesn’t give you anywhere near enough indication that one and all were having a laugh here. No, I suspect for the most part everyone was being serious here, and it’s seriously stupid and no fun at all.  

 

Rating: D