Terminal Velocity (1994).

“It’s an American classic.” - Kerr

1. (The Plot)

Charlie Sheen plays Olympic-gymnast-turned-skydiver Ditch Brodie - yes, you read that right, and it’s an awesome name - takes a young woman up for her first skydiving lesson. When he turns his back for a split-second, she jumps from the plane by herself. Despite a valiant effort, Brodie cannot save her as she fails to pull her parachute and creates her very own ditch in the ground…but something doesn’t add up.

Now Ditch finds himself dodging James Gandolfini and Shooter McGavin while trying to solve a mystery filled with blondes, skydiving, and the weirdest fucking product placement you’ll ever see in a film.

Charlie Sheen literally shooting the ground.

2. (The Good)

The sky-diving sequences in this film are genuinely thrilling, which is a necessity because the rest of the film is a complete mess. The cinematography during these stunts is really sharp as well, and for the most part, they hold up nearly 30 years later.

There’s one particular action scene near the end of the film that is simultaneously the best and worst action sequence I’ve ever seen. Charlie Sheen, who plays Ditch Brodie, boards an aircraft in an effort to save Krista (played by Natassja Kinski), who happens to be locked in the trunk of a car. Sheen jumps into the car and hits reverse, sending the car into a freefall. He then scales the car while in the air and attempts to get the woman out of the trunk. It’s completely bonkers, but it was a highlight. This film needed more of that - it’s like a sequence from Fast Five, only 20 years prior.

James Gandolfini is in here as well and he’s terrific (even if his character’s name - Mr. Pinkwater - would suggest otherwise). I don’t think I have ever seen a poor performance from that man, although if you’ve literally seen any other movies, you can spot the “Wait…he was a bad guy all along!?” moment coming from miles away. Playing the straight man to Shooter McGavin pushing the cheese dial all the way past ten makes Gandolfini feel like he thought he was in a completely different movie.

“Stop blowing smoke up my schzopa.” - Ditch Brodie

3. (The Bad)

Almost everything other than the action scenes. The acting is atrocious, particularly Charlie Sheen and Christopher McDonald. The latter plays this stock 90’s bad guy with bleached-blonde hair and he’s as inept as villains get. The chemistry between Sheen and Kinski’s obviously forced love connection is missing in action. The script is an abomination.

Charlie Sheen plays this womanizing oaf, one who’s as bad with guns as he is understanding simple birthday instructions. Take the first scene for example. Sheen (who moonlights as a skydiving stripper - yes, you also read that right) is skydiving through Tucson with the intent to land at what he believes is a bachelorette party, but ends up being an 8 year old’s birthday party. There are many things wrong with this scene, so let’s tackle them one at a time. We’ll give Ditch Brodie a break for a minute and start with the parents.

First, why would these parents throw a birthday party in the walkway of what looks to be some kind of City Hall building? You’d have multiple people walking through this party all day long, even on a weekend. If you really just HAVE to have a birthday party in front of City Hall, have it on the grass! Second, if you’re throwing an 8 year old a birthday party, why on Earth would you book a skydiver to just pop in for a second? No kid would care about this overly elaborate stunt.

A perfectly normal place for a child’s birthday party.

So let’s assume that Brodie does not belong to some very niche company that supplies skydivers who just drop into parties for some extra cash and that he’s gone into business for himself. How does one mistake a birthday party for a child for a bachelorette party? People don’t typically have bachelorette parties in the middle of the day in front of the city’s political center. He lands wearing pants, and, completely oblivious of his audience (or, even worse, cognizant of it) he rips his pants off to reveal ass-less leather chaps with the words “KISS THIS” crudely painted on his ass cheeks.

Now if you see the picture above, it looks like he’s just wearing some half-baked dollar store super hero outfit from the front with a party in the back. Unfortunately, we have to read a bit more into this, taking into account the reaction from the people we can see - gasping and covering their young ones’ eyes. After analyzing this scene for far too long, I must assume that Ditch Brodie has his dick and/or balls hanging out for all to see.

Displayed, in all his glory.

Perhaps the worst offender in this movie is the dialogue that the actors were forced to say. I don’t think we’ll ever hear the phrase, “I’m much more than a walking penis…I’m a flying penis.” uttered on-screen again.

There’s also this very minor side character played by the beautiful Sofia Shinas that I have to at least mention. She’s a jump instructor just like Charlie Sheen’s character, but she’s got two broken legs (nothing says “Skydiving is perfectly safe” quite like walking into a jump warehouse and seeing the instructor hobbling around on crutches). Her character’s name in the credits? Broken Legs Max. At the end of the film, her legs are no longer broken, but her arm is. It’s like a weird running joke plucked straight from a stupid SNL skit.

“Let's just say she did for bullshit what Stonehenge did for rocks” - Ditch Brodie

4. (The Ugly)

Let’s talk about some Cadillac product placement. Kerr is a bad man but he loves his fucking Cadillac. He comments on it several times in the film, including this 30 second gem:

He’s so attached to this car, that when Charlie Sheen backs it out of a moving airplane 20,000 feet above the ground, he decides that he’d rather hold on to the hood of his shiny red ride and die with it rather than letting it go. Oh, and the trunk lever just breaks right off in Sheen’s hand when the car is free-falling, so if you like opening your trunk, this probably isn’t the car for you.

It may just be one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen a character do and it’s most certainly up there with the weirdest ad placements I’ve ever seen in a film.

“You go…we go.” - Kerr, probably.

One other thing of note - the character Ditch Brodie was named Cornelius “Woody” Gibbs in the script, so I guess that would have been really ugly.

5. (The End)

Look, I tried to save everyone the trouble and uploaded the action scenes to YouTube, but Disney apparently owns the rights to this flick and they’re not letting anyone roll them up. Even with the speed upped by 10%, YouTube still blocks it worldwide. Bottom line is that the skydiving scenes are pretty great and although the film as a whole isn’t good, I could see this being fun if you were under the influence and watching with a few buddies all primed for a good time. If you can find the Blu-ray for under $10, it might be worth a pickup.

Side note, and something that I thought was completely weird - I was looking at the back of the Blu-ray from Kino and noticed that there are two screenshots on the back. Here’s a pic.

That first pic is simply a screen grab from a ridiculous scene that I didn’t even mention. But that second pic?

In the movie, Sheen reverses the car from the plane while sitting in the driver’s seat. In this pic, it looks as if Sheen pushed the car out of the plane and is hanging onto the back, complete with “speed lines” (don’t get excited, Charlie - different kind of speed). I think it’s just a poor photoshop trying to insinuate that the scene has progressed to the point that Sheen was trying to unlock the woman from the trunk. If that was the case, just photoshop the plane out.

I’ve written far too much about this movie by this point.