Bullet Points: Aces: Iron Eagle III
What do you get when you take the heart and soul of the Iron Eagle franchise and throw in one of Indiana Jones’ greatest rivals, add in a former two time Ms. Olympia, mix in an international superstar and include an eclectic cast of supporting characters?
You get the 1992 movie, Aces: Iron Eagle III. Aces is arguably the best of the Iron Eagle sequels and the subject of this edition of Bullet Points…
- Air Show: After helping Doug Masters rescue his father in the original Iron Eagle, then doing his part to help end the Cold War in Iron Eagle II, Chappy Sinclair (Louis Gossett Jr.) now has a side hustle working at an air show where they reenact World War II dogfight for enthusiastic crowds. Chappy represents the United States in the show and is joined by three flying aces… there’s Palmer proudly representing the Queen (played by Christopher Cazenove of A Knight’s Tale fame). Horst Buchholz (The Magnificent Seven) plays the German representative Leichman. And last but not least is the Japanese representative Horikoshi played by the legendary Sonny Chiba (The Street Fighter). After another successful show, our fly boys are shooting the breeze with the air show promoter Stockman (played by Fred Dalton Thompson of Die Hard 2 fame) when Chappy receives some bad news… a friend of his that is stationed at the nearby Air Force base that Chappy resides at was shot down and killed . But the news is about to get worse…
- From Bad to Worse: Chappy’s friend Ramon Morales was not just killed, drugs were found hidden inside the wreckage of his plane and now Ramon’s activities are being investigated by the DEA. Chappy knowing the kind of man Ramon was and his background can not believe he would be a drug smuggler so he starts his own private investigation into the matter and that is about the time Chappy encounters Ramon’s younger sister Anna, played by former Ms. Olympia Rachel McLish. Anna made an almost Houdini like escape from the Peruvian village she called home in order to to get to her brother in the United States to tell him about the horrible things that were happening there. The Chappy/Anna relationship gets off to a rough start as Chappy has to deliver the bad news that her brother is dead. Anna does not trust Chappy at first, but after Chappy tracks her down at her mother’s apartment in a rough part of town and saves her life, things change. This is also the point in the film where they introduce the street wise character named Tee Vee (Phil Lewis). Tee Vee proves to be pretty resourceful and provides the comic relief in the movie.
- The Plot Thickens: We eventually learn that Simms (Mitchell Ryan), the commanding officer of the Air Force Base is all in on the drug smuggling. Simms is bitter that his base is being shut down and is using the dirty drug money to fund his retirement. Simms is assisted by his right hand man Doyle (Rob Estes, Trapper County War) as they make sure the shipments that come in from Peru get to the necessary parties in the United States for distribution and sale… when the DEA starts sniffing around, it is Simms and Doyle who make Ramon Morales the scapegoat for their nefarious actions. Running things on the Peruvian end is Kleiss (Paul Freeman, Raiders of the Lost Ark) and his right hand man, Escovez (Juan Fernandez, Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects). Kleiss and Escovez exude evil as they terrorize the villagers and force them to work in their make shift drug lab.
- Big Action Finale: Chappy convinces Stockman to allow him and his fellow Aces to upgrade their vintage World War II planes (thanks to Chappy’s connections at the Air Force Base) and fly down to Peru to shut down the drug operation that is being ran out of Anna’s village. This leads to a third act that has everything you’d expect from an Iron Eagle film and then some. The battle between good and evil is fought both on land and in the air. We get some massively impressive explosions. We get Kleiss flying an experimental Nazi plane and engaging in a dogfight with the Aces… that at one point includes Chappy coming to the rescue when Palmer finds his world turned upside down LITERALLY. Anna stands out as a real impact player… she thwarts being raped by Branscombe Richmond’s character (conveniently named “Rapist”), she leads her rebel forces as they battle to reclaim the village and she even gets to go one on one with the main bad guy himself, Kleiss.
Having not watched Aces: Iron Eagle III in years, I forgot just how much fun the movie was. With a great cast and copious amounts of action… Aces: Iron Eagle III has something for every action lover.
And I now have something for those of you who love Bonus Bullet Points…
- Familiar Faces: I have already talked about so many of the familiar faces that comprised the Aces: Iron Eagle III cast, but there were more… Like International Boxing Hall of Famer Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini, who played Chico, the thug tasked with taking out Anna when she was visiting her mother in the inner city… Tom Bower, who I will always remember as Marvin in Die Hard 2, played Crawford, the DEA agent who was investigating the connection with the drugs coming into the country and the Air Force base… And did I spy Bob Minor… yep, Minor had a minor role (get it?) during the inner city sequence. I will always remember Bob Minor from his work in Action Jackson.
- Directed By: Aces: Iron Eagle III was the only movie in the Iron Eagle franchise not directed by Sidney J. Furie. Aces was directed by John Glen. Glen is most famous for directing several James Bond movies over the course of his career including For Your Eyes Only, A View to a Kill and Licence to Kill.
- Favorite Quote: “Nice Hat.” …Tee Vee utters the simple, yet effective line after Estovez blows up the church in the village and the church bell that is propelled into the air by the explosion lands on Estovez’s head and kills him.
- Missed Opportunity: How did no producers get Rachel McLish and Cory Everson in the same movie together? In fact I was shocked that McLish only had one other film appearance after Aces: Iron Eagle III.
- Disturbing Quote: “What you smell is in your pants.” – Chappy
- Soundtraxx: The movie features the En Vogue cover of “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”, a song that was made famous by The Andrews Sisters. The Andrews Sisters actually performed the song in the 1941 Abbott and Costello movie, Buck Privates…
