What Not To Watch: The Hunt for Eagle One
The tag line on the cover of The Hunt for Eagle One states that the only thing harder than combat is rescue. Even though it wasn’t a rescue mission or combat, getting through this movie was a hard thing to do.
While the characters in the movie were hunting for Eagle One, I found myself hunting for something interesting or exciting on the screen. I never found it.
- Backfired: It is not uncommon for B movies like The Hunt for Eagle One to get an established star or stars to attract fans familiar with the stars’ previous work and, to borrow a pro wrestling term, “give the rub” to some of the other actors in the movie. This movie is one case where that idea seemed to backfire. Look no further than the press conference that General Frank Lewis (Rutger Hauer) conducts in the opening minutes of the film. If the “actor” asking General Lewis the questions was anymore wooden, he’d be a tree. Hauer outshines him, which is no difficult task. But it really spotlights how crappy the majority of the cast is. Then there’s Mark Dacascos’ character, Lt. Matt Daniels. There is absolutely no time or thought put into his character, it is like they figured the audience would see it was Mark Dacascos and assume that is why he is the hero of the movie and why he is leading the hunt for Eagle One. It is a complete waste of Dacascos.
- Timing is Everything: Theresa Randle, who can claim Spawn, Bad Boys and Bad Boys II on her action resume, plays Captain Amy Jennings. She is a helicopter pilot, who finds herself shot down in a jungle full of rebel forces. She survives the crash along with Major Aginaldo, played by Ricardo Cepeda who you may remember from nothing you’ve ever seen before. Jennings and Aginaldo are quickly captured by the rebel forces led by Abubaker Al Hassan, played by Jojo De Leon who you may remember from even less things than Ricardo Cepeda. Aginaldo is killed by the rebels, but they take Randle prisioner, eventually torturing her. At that point in the movie, I was feeling tortured by watching, so it really allowed me to empathize with her character.
- Buy Backs: Is there anyone out there that actually owns a copy of this movie? I can see maybe a big Mark Dacascos fan who has made it their mission to pick up any Dacascos movie they come across, whether they’ll actually watch it or not. I understand that logic, that’s why I have a VHS copy of Caboblanco starring Charles Bronson in my collection. But other than that, anybody who may have made the mistake of purchasing this movie, had to have either thrown it away or taken it to a DVD exchange place… and I can imagine the DVD exchange place would charge somebody to take the movie off their hands.
I’ve seen some comments online that the sequel is a better movie. That would not be tough to do considering this movie is filled with generic soldiers, one dimensional villains and some of the least exciting action sequences known to man. But I can’t comprehend how after the first one there was even consideration for making a second one (and no it is not called The Hunt for Eagle Two).
Please do yourself a favor and don’t hunt down The Hunt for Eagle One. Let it remain something you’ve only read about it here on Bulletproof Action and not something you sat down and subjected yourself to.
