Firefox (film)

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's 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 U.S. and British hands.

Although the story is largely set in the Soviet Union, Cold War considerations meant that Eastwood's and Fritz Manes's 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. works, it was praised for its special effects, flying scenes, and thriller aspects,

Plot

thumb|left|MiG-31 Firefox, the film's fictional aircraft

A joint British–American plan is devised to steal the MiG-31 "Firefox", a highly advanced Soviet fighter jet. Capable of Mach 6 hypersonic flight, the Firefox is invisible to radar and carries weaponry controlled by human thought, threatening to give the Soviets a military advantage over the West. Retired U.S. Air Force Major Mitchell Gant—an experienced pilot, Vietnam veteran, ex-member of an aggressor squadron, and former prisoner of war—is deemed well-suited for the task, despite his affliction with "delayed stress syndrome". Air Force Captain Buckholz makes an unannounced helicopter trip to Gant's home in Alaska and explains the mission.

Gant has two further advantages: he speaks Russian, thanks to his Russian mother, and will be aided by a network of Soviet dissidents, three of whom are scientists working on the fighter plane itself. His 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, briefs Gant 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 kills Sprague and plants Gant's false identification papers on the corpse. 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 afterward. 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 about the aircraft and warns that there is a second prototype in the hangar. A fire will destroy the second plane and cause a diversion, allowing Gant to hijack the first plane. Gant knocks out Lt. Colonel Yuri Voskov, a Soviet pilot assigned to perform a test flight while the Soviet First Secretary visits. Alone with the unconscious Voskov, Gant decides to spare his life. The KGB finally learns Gant's identity, but it is too late. Although the scientists start the fire, the second prototype survives. Baranovich is singled out by Soviet personnel and draws a pistol, managing to shoot one of the guards 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 Gant successfully takes off. The British–American team, monitoring Soviet communications, realize that he is airborne.

The Soviet First Secretary contacts Gant and tells him to return the plane. After Gant refuses, he orders the plane destroyed. Gant begins flying south to confuse his pursuers, then turns north. He narrates his actions on the cockpit voice recorder while the Soviets frantically try to stop him. General Vladimirov plans a trap for the Firefox, but Gant destroys a Soviet 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 Firefox. However, Gant's decision to let Voskov live has consequences—the Soviet pilot flies the second prototype, with orders to intercept him in the North Cape area. Gant is flying home when Voskov appears, engaging him in a dogfight. After a hard-fought battle, Gant fires a rearward missile with the aircraft's thought-control system, and Voskov's plane is destroyed. Gant continues his flight to safety.

Cast

Production

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

The film is based on the creation of a "mythical" 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.

Development

On April 25, 1977, Publishers Weekly reported that Talent Associates purchased the film rights to Craig Thomas’ novel from Holt, Rinehart and Winston. However, on June 6, 1979, Hollywood Reporter claimed that Warner Bros. had acquired the property earlier. 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. Clay Lacy's flying cost "$1,200 an hour, across the western U.S. and to the Thule Air Force Base in Greenland, with $150,000 worth of computer and camera equipment on board", with the recorded footage to "be stored and played back as backdrops when composited with shots of the model planes filmed against a blue screen". The original scale model made by Greg Jein used in the bluescreen work is now on display at the Warner Bros. Museum. The "team spent fifteen months and 'several million dollars' on 250 optical effects shots". and was released on LaserDisc in 1983. A DVD release arrived on October 1, 2002, featuring a documentary titled Clint Eastwood Director, showing the film's premiere in Washington D.C. and reviewing Eastwood's career. Firefox was released in Blu-ray on June 7, 2011.

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. 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.

Re-evaluation

Several recent assessments of the film have been positive. Writing in 2024, Lloyd Farley of Collider called the film a "touchstone moment" in Eastwood's career, as it "marks the first time we see an Eastwood character with weaknesses". While Eastwood had previously "played characters who were unstoppable, steely, cool heroes and anti-heroes", Mitchell Gant "is crippled at inopportune times by PTSD flashbacks and an overwhelming sense of anxiety that it's all going to come crashing down around him". Fuhs discussed how stealthy the plane would be, using it as "an example of estimating RCS for an aircraft".|name=|group=

In the May 2023 issue of Proceedings, published by the U.S. Naval Institute, Lt. Cmdr. Mark Wess discussed Firefox in his article "Brain-Machine Interface—the New ‘BMI’", comparing the thought-control helmet used aboard the plane to present-day brain–computer interface developments. Wess commented that the "brain–machine interface (BMI), which may have seemed outlandish in 1982, is a good example of how science fiction can be prophetic: Prototype BMIs are a reality today".

Notes

References

Bibliography

Carlson, Mark. Flying on Film: A Century of Aviation in the Movies, 1912–2012. Duncan, Oklahoma: BearManor Media, 2012. .
Culhane, John. Special Effects in the Movies: How They Do It. New York: Ballantine Books, 1981. .
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. .
Munn, Michael. Clint Eastwood: Hollywood's Loner. London: Robson Books, 1992. .
Schickel, Richard. Clint Eastwood: A Biography. New York: Knopf, 1996. .
Thomas, Craig. Firefox. New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1977. .
Thomas, Walter. "Filming Firefox". Air Classics, Vol. 44, No. 9, September 1982.