Flight of the Intruder (film)

Starring Wilem Dafoe's mustache!


A 1991 movie based on a novel of the same name by Stephen Coonts, taking place during the Vietnam War. It follows the exploits of Lieutenant Jake "Cool Hand" Grafton following the death of his Bombadier-Navigator during a pointless air strike.

Tropes used in Flight of the Intruder (film) include:
  • Ace Pilot: A subversion, as "Cool Hand" Grafton is a bomber pilot. That said, he's considered to be an exceptionally skilled one.
    • There is a scene in a bar featuring a game where someone rides a chair down a rail towards a mud pit. They have to pull the lever dropping a hook just in time to catch the wire to stop them. Pull the lever too soon or too late, and they get launched into the mud pit. A fighter pilot tries and fails, then Jake tries it and succeeds.
  • Airstrike Impossible: The one-plane Sam City bombing mission.
    • And because the bombs didn't drop the first time due to a malfunction, they have to do it again.
  • Anti-Air: Given the protagonists' role as ground-attack pilots, tasked with flying at low altitude, they find themselves constantly exposed to virtually every flavor of this imaginable, often with horrifying results. Late in the film, Cole and Grafton decide to get some payback by attacking SAM City.
  • Backed by the Pentagon: How else do you think the producers would have been able to scrounge up an aircraft carrier for the movie?
  • Bar Brawl: One that involves a crocodile.
  • Berserk Button: While he is more than willing to perform airstrikes that kill hundreds of enemy troops, Grafton does not want to be reminded of how many peoples' deaths he has personally caused in his air strikes.
    • Commander Camparelli seems to have almost nothing but berserk buttons. Or at least, Grafton seems incapable of doing anything except push them.
  • Burial At Sea: Morg receives this after being killed by the "peasant with a rifle".
  • Chekhov's Gunman: The Phantom Shitter
  • Coming in Hot: In the beginning of the film. There isn't anything particularly wrong with their plane, but Grafton's Bombadier-Navigator has been mortally wounded, and Jake is trying to help control the bleeding while trying to land the plane.
  • Cool Plane: Half of the point of the movie is that the Grumman A-6 Intruder could be considered an aversion. Limited to subsonic speeds, carrying no guns or air-to-air weapons, and resembling nothing so much as a giant tadpole with wings, the Intruder is as uncool as it gets, but is remarkably good at what it does, which is low-level attack, often at night.
  • Composite Character: Several supporting characters get merged (or get callsigns from other characters who are written out. Notably, New Guy becomes Razor, and Tiger Cole gets Razor's Porn Stache and Major Allen's fate.
  • Cool Ship: The USS Independence. It's a supercarrier that can carry and launch upwards of a hundred jets.
  • Crowning Moment of Funny: Razor (seen from some distance down the hall) is getting a righteous ass-chewing from Commander Camparelli (who can't be seen from where the camera and Grafton are) for his part in a Bar Brawl. Grafton (having actually just about started the brawl) is quietly sneaking past, completely outside of Camparelli's view, when the Commander leans out into the hallway and screams "GRAAAAFTOOOON! Get in here!".
  • Death From Above: More often than not, the main characters. During the climax of the film, the US Air Force A-1 "Sandy" attack planes as well, which we get to see strafing and bombing the North Vietnamese Army troops and dealing out a Mercy Kill to Tiger Cole.
  • Desk Jockey: The Intel officer is obviously not an aviator.
  • Dual-Wielding: Grafton during the finale.
  • Ejection Seat: Played straight, twice, and averted once when a pilot chooses to try and evade the missile and fails.

Grafton: Well, this is the end of Devil Five- O - Five. Say goodbye, asshole!
Cole: Goodbye Asshole!
Grafton: Eject! Eject! Eject!

  • Every Helicopter Is a Huey: Averted. The one time a helicopter is featured in the film, it is an HH-3 "Jolly Green Giant" rescue chopper, easily recognized for being designed with a boat-hull for a lower body, being designed for amphibious operations.
  • Fatal Family Photo: The Boxman dies soon after receiving a letter from a girlfriend saying they're having a baby.
  • Fun with Acronyms: Tiger Cole's last words: "Alfa, Mike, Foxtrot," is military slang for "Adios, Mother Fuckers.", making this a Genius Bonus Precision F-Strike as well.
  • Genius Bonus: They never explain why they call the anti-aircraft missiles "Sam" [1]
  • Guns Akimbo: How Grafton takes out the sniper at the climax of the film.
  • Guy in Back: Due to the way their plane is designed, he's actually a Guy On The Right. The Bombadier-Navigators. [2]
  • Hey, It's That Guy!: Ross never said he served in the Navy during Vietnam!
  • I Take Offense to That Last One: Grafton, Razor, and Tiger Cole freely admit to taking part in the Bar Brawl, thus being at least partially responsible for many of the ensuing damages, and for evading the Shore Patrols so they could get back to the ship. They swear the crocodile was unharmed when they left the bar, however.
  • Ironic Nickname: Razor, decided upon as a better nickname than New Guy, for a pilot who doesn't look old enough to start shaving yet. When he turns out to be very bloodthirsty when it comes to defending downed fellow pilots, Camparelli decides that his new callsign is "Straight Razor".
  • Karma Houdini: Grafton and Tiger Cole fly into restricted airspace and bomb a missile stockpile in downtown Hanoi, against standing orders. After a brief court martial, they are told not to tell anybody and returned to duty.
  • Kill It with Fire: The Air Force "Sandy" attack planes drop napalm on the North Vietnamese troops to keep them away from downed American aviators.
  • Made of Explodium: SAM City, Justified for very obvious reasons.
  • Memetic Badass: Commander "Dookie" Camparelli, in-universe. Scary Black Man, Third Generation Mafia, he was built with the ship, he is a weapons system, and THERE WAS A COST OVERRUN!!!
  • Mercy Kill: Tiger Cole.

I'd do the same for you.

  • New Meat: A new pilot has the bad timing to arrive very soon after the death of a beloved comrade. Everybody is too emotionally drained to come up with a nickname for him, they briefly consider calling him "New Guy", but decide on Razor instead.
  • Nom De Guerre: Being a movie about combat pilots, there are quite a few. Cool Hand, Razor, The Boxman, Morgue, Tiger, etc.
  • No One Gets Left Behind: The climax of the film. The North Vietnamese capitalize on this by using downed airmen as bait to draw the Air Force rescue aircraft in closer to their anti-aircraft guns. Leads to a Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Plane Spotting: Where to start? Obviously, there is the A-6 Intruder and its A-6B "Iron Hand" SAM-hunting variant. We also see A-1 Skyraiders, an HH-3 Super Jolly Green Giant helicopter, and a variety of other planes.
  • Playing Possum: An NVA trooper is shot dead by Commander Camparelli when he tries to search the cockpit of his crashed plane.
  • Porn Stache: It's a wonder that Wilem Dafoe's mustache didn't get a casting credit.
  • Race Lift: The Sino-American girl that Grafton has a romance with in the book is replaced by the blonde widow of Grafton's dead friend.
  • Revised Ending: The ending is tightened up a bit by the removal of the Air Force Major, and thus his entire mini-arc, from the end of the book. His Heroic Sacrifice instead goes to Tiger Cole, calling in an airstrike on himself because the NVA are using him as bait. A lot more of the supporting characters are otherwise directly involved, however, with Grafton saving Dookie Camparelli rather than Tiger Cole.
  • Rogue Agent: Grafton and Tiger Cole decide to do a two-man raid in downtown Hanoi. In the book, the target was the Communist Party Headquarters, in the movie, it was a stockpile of anti-aircraft missiles
  • Serious Business: "The Phantom Shitter", which turns out to be a Chekhov's Gunman
  • Shoo Out the Clowns: The movie becomes rather more serious after The Boxman dies.
  • Shown Their Work: Which is appropriate, as Stephen Coonts was an Intruder pilot during the Vietnam War.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: Downtown, being sung by Grafton and Cole as Sam City is blown to pieces.
  • The Ace:

Grafton (facetiously): Hey, are you really a fighter pilot?
Fighter Jock: Never ask someone if he's a fighter pilot. If he is, he'll tell ya. If he's not, you'll just embarrass him!

  1. ↑ Surface to Air Missile
  2. ↑ The senseless death of Grafton's first GIB, Morg, is what sets the plot in motion.
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