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Flight of the Intruder
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Flight of the Intruder is a 1991 film directed by John Milius, which is based on the novel by A-6 Intruder pilot Stephen Coonts. The film stars Danny Glover as Commander Frank 'Dooke' Camparelli, Willem Dafoe as Lieutenant Commander Virgil 'Tiger' Cole, and Brad Johnson as Lieutenant Jake 'Cool Hand' Grafton.
Plot
Flight of the Intruder centers on U.S. Navy Lieutenant Grafton who becomes increasingly disillusioned with political controls imposed on his bombing missions of North Vietnam after his bombardier/navigator is killed during a night-time raid. Other planes from Grafton's aircraft carrier are being shot down by surface-to-air missiles which are stockpiled in the city of Hanoi, off-limits to retaliatory bombing raids. With Cole as bombardier/navigator, Grafton plans a renegade attack on "SAM City", a park in the center of Hanoi where the missiles are stored.
The ongoing battle between American attack planes and North Vietnamese anti-aircraft weaponry (ranging from sophisticated radar-guided anti-aircraft missiles and jet interceptors to a peasant with a flintlock rifle firing blindly into the sky) is a prominent theme in both the book and movie, with the threat of being shot down by such weapons being a constant concern for the pilots, who use various means to defend themselves (flying at
low altitude, using
electronic countermeasures and
chaff, and actively
attacking the anti-aircraft weapons)
Trivia
- Flight of the Intruder was filmed partly on the USS Independence (CV-62). It went out for two weeks of filming in November of 1989. The film crew kept the ship's fire party busy with numerous small electrical fires started with their lighting equipment.
- Two early variants of the A-6 Intruder are featured in the movie, the A-6A and the A-6B. The A-6A is a conventional bomber and the A-6B carried specialized electronics and weapons for SEAD missions (the Navy called this "Iron Hand", the Air Force called it "Wild Weasel".)
- A Flight of the Intruder game was created for the NES. 1 2
- The big knife Tiger Cole carried in his flight suit and used when he went belly to belly with a North Vietnamese soldier was a special limited edition Cold Steel Trailmaster Bowie named the "Intruder Bowie". It has a black micarta coffin grip and a serial-numbered triangular "Intruder" stamp on each blade. The specifications of the blade: it is a full tang, clip point of 9.5" of virtually unbreakable Carbon V(R) steel with a rolled razor-sharp edge, a false edge on top with a 3/8" spine.
- The movie currently (as of December 2006) holds a 5.2/10 rating at IMDb.com.
- The DVD release contains a probable unintentional mistake during its 'play' menu. A lone F-14 Tomcat aircraft is shown next to the movie title on the DVD menu instead of an A-6 Intruder. While the F-14 fighter aircraft did fly during Vietnam in the later years, the single aircraft portrayed is certainly not the A-6 Intruder bomber aircraft the movie title and story is based upon.
- Biographer Joe Hyams titled his 1991 book on the World War II experiences of President George H. W. Bush Flight of the Avenger, apparently as a play on the title of Stephen Coonts' novel and this film; the TBM Avenger torpedo bomber that Bush flew was also built by Grumman like the A6 Intruder, and had a roughly equivalent mission.
Differences from Book
The movie featured various changes to many of minor characters from the book, changing some and merging others.
The Hanoi Raid launched by Jake and Tiger Cole in the movie was aimed at a stockpile of surface-to-air missiles in downtown Hanoi. In the book, their target was the National Assembly building.
Tiger Cole is killed in the climax of the movie, while in the book he is successfully rescued along with Jake.
de:Flug durch die Hölle
fr:Le Vol de l'intruder
ja:イントルーダー 怒りの翼
