User Reviews

Skydiver Ditch Brodie (Charlie Sheen) is asked for a lesson. The beautiful lady (Nastassja Kinski) he takes on the plane seems to fall to her death as the parachute doesn't open. Brodie quickly finds out that she is alive and well, and gets into the middle of a conspiracy. Soon he is chased by secret agents, gangsters, Russians... everyone, really, and he doesn't know what for. What matters most to this movie is that it is moving fast, as its title suggested. And "Terminal Velocity" does well as an action movie with its stunts and explosions, if you compare it to others of the genre. Also it has a certain sense of humor because of the unusual situation that the pretty lady perfectly knows the espionage business, while the hero just follows her footsteps and even has to ask her how he can fire a gun. It's not a Bond, but Sheen and Kinski both have much less exciting films in their biography, so most watchers won't be disappointed.

Terminal Velocity is set in Arizona where maverick skydiver Richard 'Ditch' Brodie (Charlie Sheen) takes a job from the attractive Chris Morrow (Nastassja Kinski) to do a jump with her, however things go wrong & she falls out of the plane & ends up dead on the ground 1000's of feet below. Richard decides to do a little investigating & discovers that Chris is still alive & is an ex Russian KGB agent trying to stop another ex Russian KGB agent Ben Pinkwater (James Gandolfini) from stealing $600 million worth of hi-jacked Russian gold & together with Chris he decides to stop the bad guy's & clear his name...

Directed by Deran Sarafian I actually thought Terminal Velocity was a decent & enjoyable little action flick. The script by executive producer David Twohy moves along like a rocket although after the intriguing set up when Chris fakes her own death it sort of settles back down into standard action film thriller territory. The film never seems to take itself seriously & is fairly light hearted with some amusing one liners coming from Sheen, I loved the 'pack your bags we're going on a guilt trip' line he comes out with as Kinski tells him about the hardship Russians have! It's nothing terribly original, it's clichéd in the sense there are the hero's who eventually defeat the bad guy's & save the day but it's fun & provides a fair amount of entertainment if your looking for some light action.

Director Sarafian does a decent job, it's not particularly stylish but it's well made with some good action scenes. The skydiving stunts are particularly impressive although some seem a little far fetched especially the way Sheen rescue Kinski from a car that's been driven out the back of a plane. There are some neat enough explosions & fist fights as well.

With a supposed budget of about $50,000,000 it tanked at the box-office making a paltry $16,000,000. The acting is alright with Sheen making a likable hero.

Terminal Velocity turned out much better than I thought it would & I'm struggling to see why it bombed so badly when it was released, anyway I liked it & thought it was entertaining fun.

TERMINAL VELOCITY is one in a small wave of Hollywood films that utilised the topic of extreme sports to bring extra energy to the subject matter. POINT BREAK is perhaps the most influential and famous of the group, and then there was Wesley Snipes's DROP ZONE too. TERMINAL VELOCITY stars Charlie Sheen as the hero and it is undoubtedly the dumbest skydiving thriller you'll ever watch.

The plot sees Sheen's bone-headed character get tangled up in a conspiracy plot involving Nastassja Kinski, daughter of the famous German actor Klaus Kinski. There are plot twists borrowed from Stallone's CLIFFHANGER and an increasingly twisty storyline which ends up with the main character simply pursued by numerous goons. What follows is a series of unbelievable action escapades that refuse to follow the laws of physics.

The film has dated plenty since release and if you compare it to something like SPEED it comes off by far the worst. Sheen is impossible to take seriously as an action hero after his roles in the two HOT SHOTS! films and the film as a whole has an unwelcome spoof feel to it. James Gandolfini did the bad guy thing much better in TRUE ROMANCE and is a joke here. And don't get me started on those silly stunts...

I don't see how some people rate this movie so highly. The "Russians as menace" trope was by then threadbare, the dialogue was wooden, the minutes-long scene of skydiving near the end stretches credibility beyond the breaking point and the characters were flimsy even for a sendup of the genre, which it seemed to be attempting. This is possibly the worst film I've seen in a theater. The only redeeming feature I saw in it was that a few scenes in it showed the some of cool scenery near my hometown. I don't have contempt for this movie, just pity. Don't rent this movie, because it's too bad to be good, and not bad enough to be so bad that it's good.

"Terminal Velocity" is another one of those highly charged, average adventure films with over the top action and absolutely no plot.

Director Deran Sarafian makes sure the action comes thick and fast, with some of the stunts being truly spectacular, especially one particular scene in which our hero finds himself hurtling towards the earth in a convertible car, from thousands of feet up! The movie is loud, fast and has an unrelenting pace which should keep most movie-goers too preoccupied to be worrying about the absent storyline.

Charlie Sheen and Nastassja Kinski star, and both fit the bill nicely as the attractive, home grown (maybe not Nastassja) heroes, yet both have little depth to work with. What disappoints me is that Charlie Sheen is so much better than this. After struggling to make a name for himself, he really sky rocketed to stardom with two sensational performances, first in Oliver Stone's "Platoon" (86), and then again for Stone in "Wall Street" (88). Since then though it's been downhill all the way for Sheen as he quickly returned to selecting second rate scripts. Kinski (who still looks sensational) is also much better than this movie would suggest.

David Twohy's script, about a hot shot skydiver who suddenly finds his world turned upside down when a mysterious 'student' enters his life, avoids the painfully obvious just enough. There's no obligatory love scene for instance, but all the villains are predictably wicked and two dimensional, and all get their comeuppance. Just another reluctant hero saving the world from evil clutches.

Friday, February 10, 1995 - Greater Union Melbourne

Ditch Brodie (Sheen) is a radically awesome skydiver who you know is radical to the max because he works at a Jump Center. He is also the bad boy of said Jump Center. He's probably spilled more Mountain Dew than you've ever drank. When Ditchington Brodie III (which may or may not be a variation on his name that we made up) meets the alluring Chris Morrow (Kinski), he becomes embroiled in an intrigue that involves the KGB, missing gold, thugs, goons, murder, and all manner of danger and mayhem. The skydiving man must become "Detective Ditch" as he attempts to get to the bottom of it all. And there's only one way to stop the madness - more skydiving. In Ditch's world, skydiving is the solution to all problems, even on the world stage. So while James Gandolfini and Christopher McDonald are on his tail, Ditch pulls his ripcord into heroic legend. We should all be more like Ditch Brodie.

The 90's "Terminal" trend hits the big screen just in time to capitalize on another 90's trend - for all things outrageous, "Xtreme", and radically awesome. Everyone was always talking about "feeling the rush", or some variation thereof. Even Nastassja Kinski says at one point, "Is it a rush?", referring of course to skydiving, because if it isn't - not interested. And who better to be our guide through the awesome world of rush-feeling than Charlie Sheen, Ditch Brodie himself? The thing about Charlie is he does have a lot of charisma and screen presence. He also has good comic timing and cool hair. A lot of these elements are important to carrying Terminal Velocity, because the plot is pretty weak. It's all about the aerial stunts, and we give a lot of credit to the stunt people who worked on this film. They clearly went above and beyond.



Of course, this wasn't the only skydiving movie flying around at this time - there was also the same year's Drop Zone (1994), as well as the somewhat later Cutaway (2000). Terminal Velocity is bigger-budget Hollywood-stupid, but a lot better than anything Hollywood is putting out today. At least it's an original idea, not a remake, sequel, or superhero movie, which are the exclusive province of Hollywood these days. It's also a PG-13-rated middle-of-the-road Hollywood action thriller, enlivened by the cast and stunts. Of course, there are the requisite silly moments which make it worth watching.

Director Sarafian, known to readers of this site as the director of Death Warrant (1990), backs off on the violence so he can turn in a movie readily accessible to a wider audience. Sure, there are some blow-ups, a couple of fights, and some gun-shooting, but nothing you wouldn't see on TV. What he does deliver are skydiving scenes a-plenty, many of which include squealin' guitar on the soundtrack because it was the 90's, it was extreme, blah blah blah. You get the picture.





Many people in our age bracket remember going to the video store and renting Terminal Velocity on VHS, or at least remember seeing it in the store. In light of that, the movie served its purpose - being an entry-level action movie for younger viewers. It still works in that capacity today, but now it also has the added bonus of having some nostalgia value for those are of an age who remember it from back then. So, strictly speaking, this may not be an all-time classic, but it has a special place on our shelf.