MOVIE · 1990

Air America

ActionAdventureComedyDramaWar113 min

A young pilot gets recruited into Air America, a covert CIA-run airline operating in Laos during the Vietnam War, where supply runs and rescue flights come with a lot of missing explanations. Robert Downey Jr. is the newcomer, dropped into a job that looks improvised from the cockpit down. Mel Gibson’s veteran pilot moves through the same chaos with a grin and a set of rules that don’t always match the official story. As the new hire starts to see the operation’s ties to heroin smuggling, the film folds airborne action, military shadow work, and dark comedy into one very unstable chain of command.