Search - Fire Birds on DVD

MPAA Rating: PG-13 Content Advisory: Violence, Adult Situations, Questionable for Children, Adult Language, Profanity Movie Release: 1990 DVD Release: 02/03/2004 Format: DVD - Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV - Closed Captioned Audio Tracks: English, French SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 27 mins Studio: Walt Disney Video Members Wishing: 8 Genres: Action, War, War Adventure

Nicolas Cage stars in the below-par action film Firebirds -- a dying ember from Reagan-era nationalistic jingoism. In this Top Gun retread, Cage plays Jake Preston, a hotshot Army helicopter pilot who is being trained to use the U.S. Army's Apache aircraft to destroy the drug fields of a South American drug cartel. It up to his taskmaster instructor Brad Little (Tommy Lee Jones) to teach Jake humble lessons before he can be trusted to launch into the skies against the drug dealers. While Jake is trying to tame his egoism, he engages in a torrid love affair with flying ace Billie Lee Guthrie (Sean Young). The film was originally titled Wings of the Apache for the U.S. Army Apache assault helicopters that are prominently displayed in the film. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Nicolas Cage - Jake Preston
Tommy Lee Jones - Brad Little
Sean Young - Billie Lee Guthrie
Bryan Kestner - Breaker
Bert Rhine - Stoller
Dale Dye - A.K. McNeil

Top Gun takes a ride in a helicopter in this military action-adventure opus. As the President of the United States publicly pledges military support to any South American nations willing to take on the drug cartels that are flooding the American marketplace with cocaine, the drug lords step up their own private war against U.S. forces. Wealthy and well-equipped, the mercenaries secured by the drug cartels are unafraid to take on American troops and shoot down several U.S. Army helicopters that have tried to destroy the coca fields. Jake Preston (Nicolas Cage) is an Army chopper pilot who lost several friends to the cartel's forces and he's more than eager to take them on himself. It's the job of Preston's training officer, Brad Little (Tommy Lee Jones), to teach him and his comrades how to fly the latest generation of Apache helicopters for a daring raid against the South American drug kingpins, but Preston learns it takes more than arrogance to fly a chopper, and their training exercises become a war of wills between the two men. Preston and Little are also forced to rethink their attitudes about women in combat when Billie Lee Guthrie (Sean Young) is assigned to their company as an Apache pilot. Fire Birds was the first American directorial assignment for British filmmaker David Green. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide