A review of "Drop Zone"

Confessions of a Film Junkie: A review of “Drop Zone”

By: Brian Cotnoir

Okay, so this film focuses more on Wesley Snipes then it does on Corin Nemec, but he still plays an important supporting character in the film so it counts.  The film “Drop Zone” tells the story about a U.S. Marshall named Peter Nessip and his brother Terry, played by Malcolm Jamal-Warner, who are given the task of transferring an important prisoner named Earl Leedy to a maximum security prison.  Unfortunately, a group of terrorists, led by Gary Busey, get a hold of the plan and decide to hi-jack the plane that was transferring Leedy and they escape by jumping out of the commercial airplane at 30,000 feet, killing many people in the process, including U.S. Marshall Terry Nessip.  Peter is greatly upset by his brother’s death, but is made even more upset when agents blame him and his brother for the deaths.  Now Nessip sets out to find the terrorists (who many believe died in the attack), clear his name, and avenge his brother’s death.  In order to do this Nessip seeks help from a bunch of rag-tag sky divers (played by Yancy Butler, Corin Nemec, and others) to help understand the terrorists escape plot better and to hopefully uncover some clues in the attack.                        

    Where do I begin with this film?  First of all, in the story Wesley Snipes is turned away by the sky divers initially because he is not a sky diver, and that doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.  The way sky divers in this film are portrayed as this secretive almost Masonic group of people who don’t take kindly to outsiders.  Also, there is this stupid running plot device in the film that there are Rival Sky Diving teams.  They act like they’re like rival sports teams or street gangs in this film, but I’m just not buying it.  Seriously, there are scenes in the film that show sky divers sabotaging each other’s gear.  Sky diving is dangerous enough, so it’s absolutely ludicrous that one sky diver would want to hurt or endanger the life of another sky diver.  

Funniest Scene in the Film!

     Also the idea that most sky divers are only “in it for the money” is crazy.  No one in their right mind is going to pay good money for a sky diver (or team of sky divers) to rescue a person or pull off a heist.  Gary Busey’s team pulls of their heists by parachuting on to high security buildings, which is stupid.  Who the hell is not going to notice a group of parachutists landing on top of a government building?  That has to be one of the slowest ways to possibly escape. Once you deploy your parachute you’re just coasting a long for a while until you can safely land.  Not to mention using parachutes is not a stealthy way to escape, it’s just a giant call to attention. You could assemble a whole SWAT team and get them on site in the time it takes this group to pull off a heist.                

     Besides that, you would think that in a film where Gary Busey plays the bad guy he would be the most over the top actor in the film, but he’s actually not.  In fact, Gary Busey is very calm and tame in this movie even during the action sequences.  For example in the plane hi-jacking scene he is intimidating, but not over the top.  Even in the scenes where he’s sky diving he just goes about it like it’s a routine; almost like he does it every day.              

Gary Busey Looks like he does this sort of thing every week

     The most over the top characters in this film are played by actors Michael Jeter and Yancy Butler.  Jeter, plays this computer-wizard Earl Leedy, who the terrorists kidnap during the hi-jacking to help out with their evil plan.  Throughout the film Jeter is whiny, pathetic and he complains about everything and I would have been much happier of his character would have accidentally died during the initial escape.  Michael Jeter’s is just one of those actors I could never stand because he’s so obnoxious and annoying in every film I’ve seen him in!  

     Actress Yancy Butler who plays the woman who helps Wesley Snipes understand sky diving is also over the top in this film.  She doesn’t trust anyone or like anyone for absolutely no reason.  Her character comes off as that girl whose boyfriend cheated on her while she was away at college so she decided that she could never trust men again and became a lesbian by choice for a few years—at least that was the vibe I got for her portrayal.

     Corin Nemec plays a slow, but well meaning air plane mechanic, who dreams of being on Yancy Butler’s skydiving team.  His character is actually very likeable.   Nemec is actually one of the few actors in this film—Besides Snipes & Busey—that actually give a competent performance in this film. 

Tell Me Corin Nemec's Going to be Okay!

     The scenes in “Drop Zones” range from bad to laughably bad.  It your typical 1990’s Action flick with poorly written characters, the most absurd plot, and stock footage of people doing dangerous stunts.  This film is to sky diving what “Twister” was to Storm Chasing; they just made it look more important than it actually is.  If you’re into sky diving you’d probably like it, but other than that I would just say that this is just a bad action film.