A poignant and well-crafted true of surviving any war that observes a soon-to-be retired Air Force Lt. Colonel Iceal Hambleton (Gene Hackman), who volunteers for a piece-of-cake-like patrol in an U.S. observation plane during the war in Vietnam. Unfortunately, the plane is shot down and Hambleton is the only crew member to bail out from the aircraft (and never seen any combat on the ground). It's up to a determined recon pilot, Clark (Danny Glover), to get Hambleton out before the N.V.A. get him or a major air strike lights up the area that Ham's in. Director Peter Markle lets the viewer have a chance to get to know Clark and Hambleton who start up a conversation at various times of the movie. Jerry Reed and David Marshall Grant appear here and both give nice supporting performances even though the movie belongs to Hackman and Glover. Mark Irwin also adds another key asset to the film by showing several terrific shots of the jungle and countryside. "BAT 21" deserves plenty of credit for trying not to be the typical Vietnam war movie and it succeeds very well.
Review of Bat*21
