33
Metascore
13 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 80VarietyVarietySpectacular action sequences and engaging performances by Mel Gibson and Robert Downey Jr make this big-budgeter entertaining and provocative.
- 60EmpireEmpireWhile Gibson and Downey work well together, Air America does tend to be slightly overcooked in the cheap laugh department at the expense of a meandering storyline.
- 60Washington PostHal HinsonWashington PostHal HinsonRoger Spottiswoode's Air America is partly glorious, partly junk, but unfortunately not in equal parts.
- 50TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineAir America comes on like a noisy, overproduced sitcom pilot.
- 50Los Angeles TimesPeter RainerLos Angeles TimesPeter RainerAir America is far from a disgrace, but it's so rare to see a film with this much panoramic verve that you want it to deliver the real goods and not this cargo-load of tinkertoy war-is-heck ironies. [10 Aug 1990]
- 33Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanEntertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanThe movie has no script, and even the better gags - like one in which a couple of the pilots scribble away at coloring books in the backseat of a plane - could have been staged more vividly.
- 25Rolling StonePeter TraversRolling StonePeter TraversThe movie that might have been goes down in flames.
- 25Boston GlobeJay CarrBoston GlobeJay CarrThe concept of Air America is refreshing, but its enactment goes nowhere fast. [10 Aug 1990]
- 25Chicago TribuneDave KehrChicago TribuneDave KehrThe confusing screenplay, by John Eskow and Richard Rush, makes a few fumbling attempts to get a plot going (Downey crash-lands and has to be rescued by Gibson; later, their CIA bosses try to frame them for drug smuggling), but mainly the movie tries to get by on attitude, which is a mistake when Mel Gibson is its main perpetrator. [10 Aug 1990]
- 0The New York TimesThe New York TimesThis muddled film about a secret C.I.A. project in Laos in 1969 fails on every possible level: as action film, as buddy film, as scenic travelogue and even, sad to say, as a way to flaunt Mel Gibson's appeal.