Dir: Deran Serafian
Star: Charlie Sheen, Nastassja Kinski, Christopher McDonald, James Gandolfini

Watching this for the first time in 20 years has a whole new set of resonances that weren’t present originally. I now live in Arizona, where this film is set, rather than London. Co-villain Gandolfini is now inextricably linked to his role as patriarch of The Sopranos, a show still more than four years from making its debut. And Sheen’s subsequent, well-publicized antics act as a amusing backdrop to lines such as “I’m much more than a walking penis – I’m a flying penis!” At least his portrayal of a loudmouthed, arrogant womanizer seems rather more plausible than, say, Sheen as a radio astronomer in The Arrival (coincidentally, written by David Twohy, who also penned this script). One does have to wonder how this might have played if, as originally intended, Tom Cruise had played the role.

It’s probably not a bad thing, particularly because the plot here is so ludicrous, it may well benefit from having someone as the lead who can play it with a self-knowing wink. It involves a bunch of disgruntled former Soviet agents, who hijack a plane full of gold, land it in the Arizona desert, and have plans to return to Russia and use it to fund a coup. Fighting to stop that is “Chris Morrow”, real name Krista Moldova (Kinski), who apparently plunges to her death in what appears to be the latest in the long line of mishaps involving parachuting maverick Richard “Ditch” Brodie (Kinski). With the authorities, in the particular shape of local DA Ben Pinkwater (Gandolfini), Ditch seeks an escape, sure he did everything he should have. He eventually discovers Krista faked her own death because…. reasons…. and she enlists him to help with the battle against her former allies. Which, fortunately, will involve a lot more sky-diving, most notably at the end when they hurtle out the back of a plane in a red Cadillac: he in the driver’s seat, she locked in the boot.

I’ve a lot of time for Twohy, not least for his work on the Riddick franchise, and also A Perfect Getaway, which is far more enjoyable than I should admit. But this one barely deserves to be considered a script, and is much more a paper-thin excuse to link some admittedly spectacular action set-pieces, sprinkled liberally with sexual tension between Ditch and Krista. Though, with this being the nineties and he being Charlie Sheen, it comes over less as tension, and more as harassment. But I was surprised how much of this had apparently stuck in my subconscious. The line “Pack your bags, we’re going on a guilt trip,” used by Ditch, has become one of my go-to phrases over the past two decades, even if I’d forgotten entirely where it came from, and the same goes for the three-legged dog to which Krista refers, that he says must be called “Tripod”. I used that a while back when one of our dogs broke her paw and had to cope with a cast, but similarly, forgot its origin.

Given the barking insanity of the storyline here, Kinski keeps an admirably straight face through it all, whether parachuting on to a building because… reasons… Or whizzing through the desert on an entirely gratuitous two-seater rocket sled, equipped with a tandem ejector seat – purely, it appears, for that overhead shot of the seat coming towards the camera while a giant fireball explodes beneath it.  Once things get going, she is asked to give less a performance, more of a series of reactions to things  going boom. But she did get some kind reviews, Gary Thompson of the Philadelphia Daily News saying, “It’s awfully nice to see Kinski pick up an automatic pistol and blast away at villains after being cooped up in obscure art pictures all those years. She does quite well, bringing to Terminal Velocity a little of the spunk and sexy chemistry that Sandra Bullock brought to Speed.” Though the New York Times disagreed, saying she “gives a thin, jittery performance that is lacking in both sensuality and feeling.”

Perhaps that was a reflection of the relationship between the two stars: I read vague whispers that was a bit “jittery” as well. Still, in comparison to Crackerjack, which immediately preceded this, Kinski’s character is at least a great deal more pivotal to the plot, although Velocity is likely a good deal less coherent. However, in 1994, $50 million was a lot of money – it was only that year Hollywood made its first ever $100 million film, in True Lies, and for entertainment purposes, it’s much better to be spectacular and dumb, than cheap and dumb. There’s no denying the aerial unit certainly earned their slice of the pie, and considering its age, this aspect has stood up well: you can almost believe Sheen and Kinski are hurtling through the sky, especially when you remember this was made before CGI could be used to make anyone appear to do anything.

However, it wasn’t enough to stand out, particular in a year that, as well as the aforementioned True Lies and Speed, also gave us a plethora of great action films that have remained much more well-regarded, including The Crow, Leon: The Professional and Natural Born Killers. Charlie and Nastassja failed to depose Time Cop, in its second week, from the top slot when Velocity hit American cinemas over the last weekend of September. It ended up not even being the most successful parachuting action movie of 1994, even though this beat to the cinemas Drop Zone, which starred Wesley Snipes as another maverick skydiver who battles criminal activities. Neither came close to recouping their (simlar) budgets, but Drop Zone did earn about 50% more; whether it’s any better, I don’t know, Velocity may simply have prematurely entered the American market for wisecracking free-fall.