Firefox (film)

Firefox
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Clint Eastwood
Screenplay by	Alex Lasker Wendell Wellman
Based on	Firefox by Craig Thomas
Produced by	Clint Eastwood
Starring	Clint Eastwood
Cinematography	Bruce Surtees
Edited by	Ron Spang Ferris Webster
Music by	Maurice Jarre
Production company	Malpaso Productions
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release dates	June 13, 1982 (1982-6-13) (Washington, D.C.) June 18, 1982 (1982-6-18)
Running time	136 minutes
Countries	United States Austria Greenland
Languages	English Russian
Budget	$21 million
Box office	$47 million

Firefox is a 1982 American action techno-thriller film produced, directed by, and starring Clint Eastwood. The cast also includes Freddie Jones, Kenneth Colley, Warren Clarke, and Nigel Hawthorne. Based on the 1977 novel of the same name by Craig Thomas, Firefox is the only film appearance of Thomas' character Mitchell Gant. The film recounts Gant's mission to secretly enter the Soviet Union, hijack a cutting-edge fighter plane, and fly the aircraft back into American hands.

Although the story is largely set in the Soviet Union, Cold War considerations meant that Eastwood's and Fritz Manes' Malpaso Company used several locations in Austria, including Vienna, for many scenes. One source states that the film was shot on a $21 million budget, the largest-ever production budget for Malpaso. Another source indicates that over $20 million was spent on special effects. The effects have been called "particularly innovative," as the "reverse bluescreen" technique was invented for the film.

Firefox was also inspired by the 1976 defection of Viktor Belenko, a Soviet Air Defense pilot who flew his MiG-25 Foxbat to Japan. Belenko's defection took place shortly before Thomas finished writing his novel. While praised for its special effects, flying scenes, and thriller aspects, critics took issue with the film's pacing, running time, and character development. Grossing $47 million domestically, the film "was a modest box-office success."

Plot

MiG-31 Firefox, the film's fictional aircraft

A joint British-American plan is devised to steal a highly advanced Soviet fighter aircraft—the MiG-31, NATO code name "Firefox"—which is capable of Mach 6 hypersonic flight, is invisible to radar, and carries weapons controlled by thought. Retired U.S. Air Force Major Mitchell Gant, an experienced pilot, Vietnam veteran, ex-member of the Aggressor squadron, and former prisoner of war, is deemed well-suited for the task. Air Force Captain Buckholz pays Gant an unannounced helicopter visit in Alaska, greatly unsettling him. Gant has a Vietnam War flashback, and Buckholz explains the Firefox mission.

Gant is aided by both his ability to speak Russian—thanks to his Russian mother—and a network of Soviet dissidents, three of whom are scientists working on the fighter plane itself. Gant's mission, as directed by the British-American team and arranged by the S.I.S., is to infiltrate the Soviet Union, steal the Firefox, and fly it back to friendly territory for analysis. Kenneth Aubrey, the British spymaster guiding the plan, gives Gant a mission briefing in London.

Gant enters Moscow disguised as Leon Sprague, a businessman and heroin smuggler. Gant and the dissidents make a rendezvous with the real Sprague but, to the shock of Gant, one of them beats Sprague to death and plants Gant's identification papers on him. Gant assumes several identities during his mission. He is questioned by a KGB agent in a metro station, but blows his cover and kills the agent in a fight, barely escaping the station in time. While the KGB is concerned about the Firefox, they do not yet know who Gant is. Aided by the dissidents, Gant remains one step ahead of the KGB and reaches the air base at Bilyarsk, where the Firefox prototype is under heavy guard.

The dissidents working on the Firefox help Gant infiltrate the base. Pyotr Baranovich, one of the dissident scientists, briefs Gant on the aircraft and his flight home, but warns that there is a second prototype in the hangar. A fire will destroy the second plane and cause a diversion, allowing Gant to escape with the first Firefox. Gant knocks out Lt. Colonel Yuri Voskov, a Soviet pilot assigned to perform a test flight while the Soviet First Secretary visits. The KGB finally learns Gant's identity, but it is too late. The scientists cause the fire, yet the second prototype is undamaged. Baranovich is singled out by Soviet personnel, but manages to shoot one of the guards with a pistol before he is gunned down. As the commotion unfolds, Gant boards the Firefox and taxis out of the hangar. Colonel Kontarsky orders his men to open fire, but he successfully takes off. The British-American team, monitoring Soviet communications, realize that Gant has taken the plane airborne.

The Soviet First Secretary contacts Gant and tells him to return the plane. Gant refuses, so he orders the plane destroyed. Gant begins flying south to confuse his pursuers, buzzing by a commercial flight, then turns north. He narrates his actions on the cockpit voice recorder as the Soviets frantically try to stop the plane. General Vladimirov plans a trap for the Firefox, but Gant destroys a reconnaissance plane instead, and the First Secretary berates Vladimirov. Gant engages a homing device en route to a U.S. submarine, which will refuel him after he lands on the polar ice pack. A Soviet ship launches missiles, but none hit the plane. Gant reaches the submarine, whose crew refuel and rearm the plane. However, Gant's decision to let Voskov live has consequences—the Soviet pilot flies the second prototype, with orders to intercept him at the North Cape area. Gant is flying home when Voskov appears, engaging him in a dogfight. After a long battle, Gant fires a rearward missile with the aircraft's thought-control technology, and Voskov's plane is destroyed. Gant continues his flight to safety as the film concludes.

Cast

• Clint Eastwood as Major Mitchell Gant
• Freddie Jones as Kenneth Aubrey
• David Huffman as Captain Buckholz
• Warren Clarke as Pavel Upenskoy
• Ronald Lacey as Dr. Maxim Ilyich Semelovsky
• Kenneth Colley as Colonel Kontarsky
• Klaus Löwitsch as General Vladimirov
• Nigel Hawthorne as Dr. Pyotr Baranovich
• Stefan Schnabel as First Secretary
• Thomas Hill as General Brown
• Curt Lowens as Dr. Schuller
• Clive Merrison as Major Lanyev
• Kai Wulff as Lieutenant Colonel Yuri Voskov
• Dimitra Arliss as Dr. Natalia Baranovich
• Austin Willis as Walters
• Michael Currie as Captain Seerbacker
• Alan Tilvern as Air Marshal Kutuzov
• Oliver Cotton as Dmitri Priabin
• Hugh Fraser as Police Inspector Aleksei Tortyev
• Wolf Kahler as KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov

Production

Full-scale MiG 31 Firefox model used in the film "Firefox" parked at Van Nuys Airport, California in May 1982

The film was based on the creation of a "mythical" super fighter: the MiG-31 Firefox. The original Firefox from the novel was, cosmetically, nearly identical to the MiG-25. The more intimidating version seen in the movie was created specifically for the film, and takes many of its design cues from the SR-71 Blackbird. In the sequel novel, Firefox Down, the Firefox's appearance is described as matching the one in the film. For filming, four large-scale replicas were created, along with one full-size model that had dimensions of 66 feet long, 44 feet wide, and 20 feet high. The full-size model was built from a radio station broadcast-antenna skeleton and was capable of taxiing at 30–40 mph.

Filming occurred in 1981 at a number of locations including Vienna, Austria; Montana; California; London and Greenland's Thule Air Force Base. Second unit filming was in San Diego, California. Hollywood aerial cinematographer Clay Lacy flew second unit aerial sequences in a Learjet 23 high-speed aerial platform, for scenes that were later integrated into the film.

Special effects supervisor John Dykstra pioneered a new technique for shooting the complex flying sequences, called reverse blue-screen photography. This involved coating the model with phosphorus paint and photographing it first with strong lighting against a black background and then with ultraviolet light to create the necessary male and female mattes to separate the foreground model and the background footage. This enabled the shiny black model to be photographed flying against a clear blue sky and gleaming white snow; compare this with traditional bluescreen technique used in The Empire Strikes Back. The original scale model made by Gregory Jein used in the bluescreen work is now on display at the Warner Bros. Museum.

Reception

U.S. President Ronald Reagan screened Firefox at Camp David in 1982. In his diary entry for June 18 of that year, Reagan called the film "darn good" and applauded it as "a one man job—act, direct, produce." A number of critics, however, were less enthusiastic about Firefox. Author Howard Hughes gave the film a negative review, saying, "Watch the trailer, read the book, play the game — just avoid the film, it's another Eiger Sanction. Less a 'Firefox', it's more of a damp squib, or at best a smoldering turkey." Vincent Canby's review in The New York Times made a similar assessment, zeroing in on Eastwood's lack of control over the plot line: "Firefox is only slightly more suspenseful than it is plausible. It's a James Bond movie without girls, a Superman movie without a sense of humor."

However, Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, praising its special effects and describing it as "a slick, muscular thriller that combines espionage with science fiction," also saying that "The movie works like a well-crafted machine." Ebert identified "one sensational chase sequence," where Soviet pilot Voskov chases Eastwood in a "crevice between two ice cliffs," as a "homage" to Star Wars. Todd McCarthy of Variety panned the film as "a burn-out. Lethargic, characterless and, at 137 minutes, at least a half-hour too long." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote that it was "generally entertaining," but "would be a lot more so if Eastwood, who served as producer-director, had excised some of the laborious buildup to the final shootout. Instead, we are asked to sit through some boring patches in which he avoids detection by Russian security officers, who seem to speak Russian or English whenever they like. What's uninteresting about all of this is that we know that Clint is going to make it to the plane. So, let's get on with it."

Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times called the film "a sagging, overlong disappointment, talky and slow to ignite. It is the first time that Eastwood the director has served Eastwood the actor-icon so badly, and it is unnerving." Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote, "Both loyal fans and neutral observers may agree that Eastwood has steered himself into a peculiarly murky flight path on this occasion," calling the plot "far-fetched" and expressing disappointment that "the Firefox doesn't look all that formidable on the screen ... The only in-flight special effect that stirs the imagination is the parallel curtains of water that suddenly erupt in the wake of the plane as it whooshes across the ocean."

As of August 2023, the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 41% based on reviews from 17 critics.

Video game

A laserdisc arcade game, based on the movie, was released by Atari in 1983.

See also

• List of American films of 1982
• Defection of Viktor Belenko

References

Bibliography

• Carlson, Mark. Flying on Film: A Century of Aviation in the Movies, 1912–2012. Duncan, Oklahoma: BearManor Media, 2012. ISBN 978-1-59393-219-0.
• Culhane, John. Special Effects in the Movies: How They Do It. New York: Ballantine Books, 1981. ISBN 0-345-28606-5.
• Hardwick, Jack and Ed Schnepf. "A Viewer's Guide to Aviation Movies." The Making of the Great Aviation Films, General Aviation Series, Volume 2, 1989.
• Hughes, Howard. Aim for the Heart. London: I.B. Tauris, 2009. ISBN 978-1-84511-902-7.
• Munn, Michael. Clint Eastwood: Hollywood's Loner. London: Robson Books, 1992. ISBN 0-86051-790-X.
• Schickel, Richard. Clint Eastwood: A Biography. New York: Knopf, 1996. ISBN 978-0-679-74991-2.
• Thomas, Craig. Firefox. New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1977. ISBN 0-03-020791-6.
• Thomas, Walter. "Filming Firefox." Air Classics, Vol. 44, No. 9, September 1982.

External links

• Firefox at IMDb
• Firefox at the TCM Movie Database
• Firefox at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films