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Air America
Sign in to save1990 film directed by Roger Spottiswoode
OverviewAI-generated
Air America is an American action, buddy and comedy film directed by Roger Spottiswoode from a screenplay by Richard Rush. It stars Mel Gibson, Robert Downey Jr., Nancy Travis and Ken Jenkins, was produced by Mario Kassar and Andrew G. Vajna, and was shot by cinematographer Roger Deakins with editing by John Bloom and music by Charles Gross. Made for Carolco Pictures and TriStar Pictures, it deals with aviation and the Vietnam War, and is set in Laos and a jungle environment.
Filmed partly in Thailand and at Pinewood Studios, the film was distributed by TriStar Pictures and Netflix on a budget of $35,000,000 and earned $57,661,269.
Synthesized by Vinony from 38 facts across 3 sources: Wikidata, TMDb, IMDb. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Film · TMDB
5.8Air America was the CIA's private airline operating in Laos during the Vietnam War, running anything and everything from soldiers to foodstuffs for local villagers. After losing his pilot's license, Billy Covington is recruited, and ends up in the middle of a bunch of lunatic pilots, gun-running by his friend Gene Ryack, and opium smuggling by his own superiors.
Cast
- Mel Gibson as Gene Ryack
- Robert Downey Jr. as Billy Covington
- Nancy Travis as Corinne Landreaux
- Ken Jenkins as Major Donald Lemond
- David Marshall Grant as Rob Diehl
- Lane Smith as Senator Davenport
Themes
- vietnam war
- central intelligence agency (cia)
- airplane
- drug smuggling
- refugee camp
- pilot
- laos
- drugs
- 1960s
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Key facts
- Directed by
- Roger Spottiswoode
- Screenplay by
- John Eskow Richard Rush
- Based on
- Air America , by Christopher Robbins
- Produced by
- Daniel Melnick , Mario Kassar
- Starring
- Mel Gibson Robert Downey Jr. Nancy Travis David Marshall Grant Lane Smith
- Cinematography
- Roger Deakins
- Edited by
- John Bloom , Lois Freeman-Fox
- Music by
- Charles Gross
- Production company
- Carolco Pictures
- Distributed by
- Tri-Star Pictures
- Release date
- August 10, 1990 ( 1990-08-10 )
- Running time
- 113 minutes
- Country
- United States
- Language
- English
- Budget
- $30–35 million
- Box office
- $57.7 million
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- film
- Genre
- comedy film
- Country of origin
- United States
- Original language
- English language
- Main subject
- Vietnam War
- Director
- Roger Spottiswoode
- Cast member
- Ned Eisenberg
- Composer
- Charles Gross
- Producer
- Andrew G. Vajna
- Production company
- TriStar Pictures
- Cinematographer
- Roger Deakins
- Narrative location
- Laos
- Filming location
- Pinewood Studios
- Duration
- 108
- FilmAffinity ID
- 141976
- Distribution format
- video on demand
Show 8 more facts
- Commons category
- Air America (film)
- publication date
- 1991-01-10
- film editor
- John Bloom
- title
- Air America
- distributed by
- Netflix
- assessment
- Bechdel test
- set in environment
- jungle
- review score
- 13%
Sources (10)
via Wikidata · CC0
~11 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Air America is a 1990 American action comedy film directed by Roger Spottiswoode and starring Mel Gibson and Robert Downey Jr. as Air America pilots flying missions in Laos during the Vietnam War. When the protagonists discover their aircraft is being used by CIA agents to smuggle heroin, they must avoid being framed as the drug-smugglers.
The plot of the film is adapted from Christopher Robbins' 1979 non-fiction book, chronicling the CIA-financed airline to transport weapons and supplies in Cambodia, Laos and South Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Air America” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.