FIREFOX

   Film (1982). Warner Bros. Dir Clint Eastwood, starring Eastwood, Freddie Jones, Nigel Hawthorne, Warren Clarke. Screenplay Alex Lasker, Wendell Wellman, based on Firefox (1977) by Craig THOMAS. 136 mins. Colour.

   The sf aspect of the film is a new Russian fighter, the MIG 31 or "Firefox", which can fly at Mach-5 and operates through electronic translation of the pilot's brain patterns (thought control). Eastwood is the US pilot smuggled into the USSR to steal it and fly it out. The movie is split in two, the difficult voyage in disguise to the Soviet air base being tense and well accomplished, the flight back out (with a STAR WARS-style dogfight) merely silly, especially since the much-discussed thought control turns out to have no real plot function at all. The film never even considers that such a raid might precipitate WWIII.

   PN