"I'm Entitled To One Mistake"

Bad movies are a lot more fun to talk about than good ones, especially when the Royal Father makes the pick. That's what he did in 1986, when he took the Queen Mother, my brother, and your servant to see Iron Eagle, a critically-panned, laughably-horrible aviation actioner starring Louis Gossett, Jr. and Jason Gedrick as an aspiring teenage fighter pilot who uses rock music pumped into his headset to help hit targets. The two team up on a rescue mission when an fictional Middle Eastern nation kidnaps his pilot father from a flight exercise gone sideways.

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For hours after we got home from the theater, Dad said at least twice, "Boy that was a bad movie," admitting he was entitled to one mistake every so often.

But, it still had campy dialogue that sticks in my head.

"And play the right kind of music! These boys ain't no rookies -- they're the ones who brought down your dad."

"Now you may deal directly with me now; Colonel Nakir Nakesh!"
"And you can deal with me -- Doug Masters!"

The Air Force would not let the producers borrow actual U.S. fighters because the plot involves stealing a pair of them for a covert mission. The filmmakers borrowed Israeli aircraft instead, touched up a bit. They also used a sewage plant as a stand-in for a refinery, and a Saddam Hussein pastiche as the evil dictator-pilot of that fictional nation.

"It made it look like anybody could get away with it," the Queen Mother said after the showing.

And still, this film made enough money to beget three sequels. And it also made it into my DVD collection, albeit only because I found it in Walmart's $3 movie bin. Bad, but yet a bargain.