We open on two U.S. Marshals, Pete Nessip (played by Wesley Snipes) and his brother Terry Nessip (played by Malcolm-Jamal Warner). They arrived at a penitentiary to pick up an Earl Leedy (played by Michael Jeter) whose specialty is hiding money for drug lords via computer. Pete and Terry were to escort Leedy to a penitentiary in Atlanta in order to testify in court. Though I would question why they escort him on passenger airline instead of a private jet? I mean have these guys ever watch Passenger 57? Seriously this movie came out two years after Passenger 57 so you would think Wesley would know better than to escort a criminal on a plane fill with potential hostages. Anyway while the plane’s en route to Atlanta, Pete is call to the cockpit listening to a message that says plane will be taken over. Meanwhile back in the passenger section we see five people gearing up with gas masks and guns and proceed to take over the plane. Terry quickly gets his gun as one of the hijackers approaches towards him; he’s about to shoot the hijacker but gets shot in the shoulder. Leedy is grabbed by the other hijacker as the remaining hijackers prep explosives on the rear airlock door. Terry soon recovers and shoots the first hijacker in the back only to be ineffective. The first hijacker is about to shoot Terry but Pete quickly tackles him down from behind. The first hijacker gives the order to blow the airlock door causing the plane to malfunction. In amidst the chaos the five hijacker make their exit out through the blown off airlock door. However, one of the hijackers was unmasked by a little girl before exiting the plane. Right after a few passengers are sucked out of the plane; the little girl is about to sucked out but is saved and pulled to safety by Terry. Unfortunately Terry gets caught in the vacuum and is about to get sucked. Pete quickly grabs Terry trying to pull him to safety but soon loses his grip. Pete tries to hang on as long as he can but eventually lost his grip and Terry sucked out of the plane.
Cut to the plane safely on the ground as Pete’s boss Tom McCracken (played by Andy Romano) arrived at the scene to get some details of what happened. The FBI is going through the airline records to find the identities of the hijackers. However, their computers start to crash and shut down. Pete suspects that it’s Leedy and that the attack on the plane was a setup; more exactly it was a prison break. The FBI are skeptical about it given how it’s unclear how the hijackers got out of the plane with Leedy. Pete believes that they may be using parachutes but still doesn’t convince the FBI as they got a call from a confirmation of what remains of Leedy. Cut to a boat house as the same hijackers from the plane show up along with a still alive Leedy (just missing a finger). Ty Moncrief (played by Gary Busey) seems to be the leader of this bunch. Cut to Pete’s place as McCracken shows up; Pete figures out where the hijackers may have but doesn’t matter as McCracken ask him for his badge and gun. Apparently the U.S. Marshal board of reviews are determine Pete’s and Terry’s responsibility of the accident. FAA and the airlines are having a shitstorm with the press and the relatives of the dead passengers; pointing fingers at Pete and Terry. So yeah forget about the five armed guys who took over a plane and killed a few people. Blame the only two guys who were doing their job.
This doesn’t stop Pete to investigate deeper as he goes to a paratrooper training camp the very next day. Learning from a CO that it’s possible to jump out of 747 but at 38,000 ft would be insanely unlikely. Another improbability is that most parachute rigs have high density metal; making it impossible for the hijackers to get pass the metal detectors. The CO gives Pete some info on two skydivers crazy enough to pull something like the mid-air prison break. Don Jagger (played by Luca Bercovici), a world campion skydiver and his old partner Jessie Crossman (played by Yancy Butler). Pete heads to a skydiving ranch in Sugarloaf Florida where Jessie holds skydiving tours. He finds a picture of Jagger (the same guy who was unmasked by the little girl) and hides it away before Jessie shows up. Upon meeting with Jessie right away she suspects that he’s a cop. Pete asked if it’s possible to skydive from a 747 but Jessie avoids the question. She invites him along the next jump for today; Jessie and Pete are in the air as a couple of people make their jump. Jessie explains how the wind forces the bodies open at 80 knots; a 747 at 800 knot would’ve required skill to avoid being ripped apart. Pete makes sly comment about skill which pisses off Jessie that she opens a trap door under him. Jessie follows suit, catches up with Pete and deploys her parachute. Both land safely on the ground but Pete is rather mad that punches Jessie and walks away. As Pete’s about to leave he’s approach by Jessie’s friends Selkirk (played by Corin Nemec) and Winona (played by Grace Zabriskie). He asked where he can find Jagger and Selkirk informs him about a big jump at Ocean Reef.
Cut to Ty and his gang doing a practice jump with Leedy; whatever they’re planning on breaking into they want him to handle the jump so he can hack into a computer within seconds. Cut to Pete talking to the little girl from the plane, asking if she remembers anything of what happened. She struggles at first but soon remembers bits and pieces; Pete pulls out the photo of Jagger and she quickly recognizes him. Pete got what he wants and leaves but is unaware of one of the detectives reporting to Ty. A little bit later Ty and his gang do another practice jump; after they deployed their parachutes Ty grabs Jagger’s chute and drags him down. Forcing Jagger towards a power station, lands on transformer and gets electrocuted to death. Cut to nighttime as Pete arrives at Ocean Reef and immediately he has rattled some cages by sitting in a table belonging to a group of Skydivers. The skydivers are about to beat him up but Pete does a bit of ass kicking of his own. Jessie soon arrives to stop the fight; she comes to a bit of a hiccup that Pete might fix. There’s big exhibition jump is coming up in Washington D.C. next weekend. However, her parole officer won’t let her go; meaning that without her Pete can’t learn anyway else on skydiving. So he has to square things up with the PO; also he has to pay her $15,000. Shortly after there’s a toast to a fallen skydiver that “burn in” (or crash landed to their death as it were). And it turned out Jagger who burn in. The next day Ty is at meeting with some client who are interesting to his offer. However, they’re a little concern about him since he used to be a DEA agent. Apparently he was honorably discharged eight months ago. So Ty decides to shows some good faith by doing a job free of charge. Cut to nighttime as Ty and crew parachute jump onto the roof of the Miami Metropolitan Police Dept. Inside the building Ty and Leedy head to the records room while the rest head to the evidence locker to gather some drugs. Leedy hacks into the system and gains access to the DEA personnel database; downloading records of undercover agents in Miami. Upon finishing up Ty and crew quickly make it back up to the roof and parachute down onto the waiting semi-truck landing pad below.
Cut to next day at Key Largo, Florida where Jessie and Pete almost have a team together. They just need to find one more and his name is Swoop (played by Kyle Secor). Jessie and Pete are at an office building, finding Swoop on a window washer rig. They offered him to join their team but he’ll join if he gets a free t-shirt….don’t ask. They come to an agreement and Swoop is now on the team. Cut to nighttime as Jessie sneaks into a storage building where Jagger’s rig is kept for inspection. She founds nothing faulty with the parachute as Pete shows up; he noticed that the D-links aren’t metal. Jessie explains that Jagger’s parachute is a smuggler’s rig made out of custom high density fabric; basically it’s what drug runners use to avoid radar. Pete suspects this is how Ty and his gang got the parachutes on the plane undetected. He cuts a piece of nylon from the rig before the two leave which Pete then sends the nylon to a friend at U.S. Marshals to get examined. Skipping a couple scenes we cut to Ty at a meeting with a client who’ll accept his services. Ty insures that once they’ve hacked into the DEA computers they’ll know every update the agency will make; having the names of every undercover agent in the world. The client will have the names delivered to him by July 5th.
Cut to “Drop Zone” in D.C. Jessie’s team and other skydivers are jumping to qualify for the July 4th jump. Before Jessie’s team head out, Selkirk gets accosted by one of Ty’s men, Torski (played by Sam Hennings). Thankfully this doesn’t go unpunished when both Jessie’s and Ty’s team are skydiving and Swoop does a “gift wrap” on Torski; both teams qualified for the July 4th jump. Cut to nighttime Torski is still pissed at Swoop that he, Deputy Dog (played by Robert LaSardo) and Deuce (played by Mickey Jones) go off to beat him up. Soon after Pete intervenes and beats the fuck out of them. A little later Pete asked Jessie about Ty: explains that He and Jagger did some drug carries three years ago. Pete is curious of why Ty would risk showing himself in D.C. Jessie explains that the 4th of July exhibition is such a large event that D.C. is a drop zone; any other day it’s a restricted airspace. Pete looks at a map marked with drop zone near the Washington Monument. After Pete leaves he’s identified by Leedy and Ty decides to ground the team by eliminating Jessie. Deputy Dog and Deuce sneak into Jessie’s trailer, finds her parachute and cuts the chute cord. The next day the qualified jumpers set off for demo jump. Selkirk is worry that he might screw up so Jessie decides to give him her rig for luck. Uh oh! All teams are in the air and make their demo jump for tonight; the demo goes well and all except Selkirk open their chutes. Selkirk opens his chute but it doesn’t deploy fully and gets all tangled up. Still falling to the earth Selkirk manages to cut off the faulty chute but is unable to deploy the secondary chute. Swoop cuts off from his chute and speeds towards Selkirk; he manage to reach him and manually deploys the chute. But it seems all too late as Selkirk crash lands into a lake. Jessie and the others got him out of the lake and try to revive him; luckily he starts to breath. Jessie spots Torski smirking of what happened; realizing who’s responsible she runs to her trailer and gets her gun.
Pete soon arrives only to spot Leedy boarding a plane with Ty and his gang. Swoop and the others are waiting for Jessie as Ty’s plane takes off. Pete shows up at Jessie’s plane asking Winona stating they’re going after Ty; Swoop and another team member, Bobby (played by Rex Linn) decide to join Pete. Cut to the Washington Monument where the 4th of July exhibition has begun; Ty’s gang sneakily stays behind as the other skydivers make their jump. Soon after Jessie (who was hiding on the plane) appears with her gun, ready to shoot the first douchebag in sight. Ty distracts her long enough to get the gun away from her. Jessie shows some serious brass balls by jumping out of the plane only to grab on to a foot rail. Pete and the others are searching for Ty’s plane; he suspects that Ty’s gang is heading to the DEA building near the drop zone. As Ty’s gang make their jump to the DEA building Pete and others have caught up with the plane. Pete grabs a chute and jumps out after Jessie; Swoop and Bobby follow suit. Jessie catches up with Pete and grabs on to him. At the DEA building Ty’s gang bypass the camera system and make their way to the computer room on the 20th floor. Pete and the others landed on the roof of the building and make their way inside. But Deputy Dog appears out of the roof entrance and shoots Bobby in the shoulder. Pete immediately attacks DD and the two are fighting near the stairway. They continue to fight until the two are tumbling down the stairs; DD ends up dead as he breaks his neck. Back on the roof Jessie gets into a window washer rig and rides it on down. However, Jessie gets spotted by Kara (played by Claire Stansfield) as she opens fire. Jessie swings into the building and squares off with Kara. Jessie gets the upper hand and kills Kara by face to the photo copier; soon after Ty gets the drop on Jessie.
Back on the roof Swoop tries to call for Jessie but almost gets shot by Torski. The two have a fight until Torski tries to throw Swoop off the roof. Struggling to hang on Swoop grabs a rope and wraps it around Torski’s neck while Bobby managed to sneak up on him and deploys his chute. Torski is dragged by the chute and eventually dies when his neck snapped. Back inside Pete makes it to the computer room and corners Leedy; Ty soon arrives with Jessie and a standoff ensues. Armed security arrived and a gunfight ensues; both guards are gun down by Ty. Cut to outside as Deuce sees some cops arriving at the building and tries to drive away. Back inside Pete and Ty exchange gunfire over a workstation until they’ve both ran out of bullets. So now the two enter into an intense fist fight; Pete decides to go fuck all as he carries Ty through a window. Pete deploys his secondary chute while Ty has a one way trip to hell as he SOMEWHERE crashes right into Deuce’s truck and presumably dies. I say presumably because the truck doesn’t even lose control and crashes nor doesn’t it explode. All seems over minutes later but Pete spots Leedy getting away; Swoop SOMEWHERE spots Leedy from a VERY TALL BUILDING, parachutes down and stops him. And with that the movie just ends.
My Final Verdict: As far as good, cheesy action films go this one doesn’t spare no expense in the cheese department. Nice concept honestly, the action scenes were well choreographed. The music just kicks ass of 90s cheese. The acting is decent; campy at times but decent. The green screen effects for those close-up freefall shots are a little meh but that’s no surprise giving what year this film was made.
Next time might gonna be a real endurance test as I dive into….an Asylum movie, to be more specific Mercenaries. Stay tuned.
