Possibly the noisiest film of its year, if not the easiest to follow (not unconnected aspects perhaps), this is the story of a CIA-backed US air company in 1969 Laos, running food to the villagers and drugs and guns for the local warlord to help him fight the communists. The pilots' motto is 'Anything, anywhere, anytime'. Gene (Mel Gibson) is storing a nest-egg of guns for his imminent retirement. Billy (Robert Downey Jr) is the newcomer, regarded as a maverick in America but a greenhorn in Laos. Their hair-raising flights form the core of the story, which is one long succession of explosions, crash-landings, drunken sprees and shouted conversations. The climax is heavily contrived but balanced by some witty captions at the very end dealing with the ultimate fates of the various characters involved. Gibson holds centre of the picture with easy grace, Nancy Travis scarcely gets a look in, and Lane Smith scores as a seemingly gullible US senator on a fact-finding mission that Air America hopes will be a wild goose chase. Watch for the scene where Gibson and Downey are hanging upside down in their helicopter. Mel's neckchain apparently defies gravity by not hanging towards the ground.

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