Flight of the Intruder ** (1991, Willem Dafoe, Brad Johnson, Danny Glover, Rosanna Arquette, Tom Sizemore) – Classic Movie Review 13,613

Legendary right-wing eccentric director John Milius’s 1991 war film Flight of the Intruder stars Danny Glover, Willem Dafoe, and Brad Johnson.

Director John Milius’s 1991 war film Flight of the Intruder is based on a novel by former Grumman A-6 Intruder pilot Stephen Coonts, and stars Willem Dafoe, Brad Johnson, Danny Glover, Rosanna Arquette, Tom Sizemore, J Kenneth Campbell, Dann Florek, Ving Rhames, Christopher Rich, and John Corbett.

Flight of the Intruder is a Noisy Man outing from co-writer/ director John Milus, with pilots Willem Dafoe and Brad Johnson up to no good in wartorn Hanoi. Milius assembles a first-rate cast, but they are given little room to move amid the well-staged stunts and lovingly crafted carnage.

It is messily scripted by Robert Dillon and John Milius, violent and jingoistic.

Ironically Milius co-wrote Apocalypse Now, the standard by which such cut-price Vietnam sagas as this are so harshly judged.

It is Milius’s final cinema film as a director.

Filming began in November 1989 on location in Hawaii. It was made with complete US Navy cooperation, with eight Naval Air facilities at the production’s disposal.

The release date of July 13, 1990 was delayed to shoot a new ending and the film was released in January 1991.

The US cinema gross was $14,587,732, against a $30 million budget. It followed Milius’s 1989 box office flop, the Pacific War adventure film Farewell to the King. Milius recalled: ‘I think the culture had changed and that is why my films were less accepted. I still think those are also great films, Farewell to the King especially.

Sean Connery got producer Mace Neufeld to hire John Milius to rewrite the Russian sequences in the film The Hunt for Red October, thinking the script was ‘too American’. This led Neufeld to hire Milius to make Flight of the Intruder.

Milius said: ‘I’m not a reactionary, I’m just a right-wing extremist. I’m an anarchist.’ He said in 1992 that he was blacklisted for his conservative beliefs in liberal Hollywood: ‘If you don’t share the politically correct vision, you are an outlaw, you are hunted and there is a price on your head. If they catch you they will hang you.’

Flight of the Intruder is directed by John Milius, runs 119 minutes, is made and released by Paramount Pictures, is written by Robert Dillon, David Shaber and John Milius, is shot in widescreen by Fred J Koenekamp, is produced by Mace Neufeld, and is scored by Basil Poledouris.

Future US Senator Fred Thompson has an uncredited major speaking role during the court-martial sequence, portraying a US Navy Judge Advocate General Corps captain. David Schwimmer has a bit part as a Squadron Duty Officer.

John Milius (born April 11, 1944)

Brad Johnson died from complications of COVID-19 in Fort Worth, on February 18, 2022, aged 62.

Tom Sizemore (November 29, 1961 – March 3, 2023) 

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,613

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