Sky Riders (USA, 1976) 91 min color DIR: Douglas Hickox. PROD: Terry Morse Jr. SCR: Jack DeWitt, Stanley Mann, Gary Michael White. MUSIC: Lalo Schifrin. DOP: Jim Freeman, Greg MacGillivray, Ousama Rawi. CAST: James Coburn, Susannah York, Robert Culp, Charles Aznavour, Harry Andrews, John Beck. (Shout! Factory)
Proof positive that there are still great films lurking in vaults that need to be resurrected for DVD, Sky Riders is a tremendous surprise. Director Douglas Hickox’s dazzling adventure thriller is great cinematic escapism alone on the small screen, and must have been an extraordinary experience in its theatrical run. This movie is also a refreshing reminder that you can still have all the thrills you want while not forsaking some substance.
Zillionaire Jonas Bracken (Robert Culp), an American expatriate in Greece, learns that his wife Ellen (Susannah York) and children are kidnapped and held for ransom by terrorists. The Athens inspector Nikolidis (Charles Aznavour!) and his men investigate, but hardly bring satisfying results. Good thing Ellen’s ex-husband is mercenary Jim McCabe (James Coburn), who leads a ragtag bunch of hang-gliding daredevils to the rescue.!
Those who have trepidation about viewing a film regarding terrorism in a post-9/11 environment can relax: this eschews politics and simply concentrates on the rescue mission. (Presumably Hollywood had learned its lesson about terrorism in cinema with Otto Preminger’s tasteless Rosebud, released a year earlier.)
This film is also refreshingly free of comic book heroics in the fashion of The Delta Force (which Sky Riders may have resembled if it was made ten years later). This is serious, intense stuff about everyday people thrown into unusual circumstances. Even the scenes of dialogue between Culp and Coburn have urgency to them; the screenplay (by three writers) invests time into making these characters three-dimensional.
These people don’t turn into superheroes, either; the insane rescue mission, involving hang-gliding and scaling a sharp cliff just to reach the hostages’ mountain lair, is never without the presence of danger. James Coburn is perfectly cast as McCabe: the wiry actor lends an air of cool and conviction to the character. But just because the charismatic leading man is so fun to watch, the film never feels larger than life, such as when McCabe and his men infiltrate the hideout, and he effortlessly directs them around as casually as an orchestra leader waving a baton.
The movie is thrilling to watch for these reasons and more. It is also superb cinema: beautifully shot (great use of framing and foregrounds) and edited, with superb aerial sequences. (Small wonder that it employed three cinematographers.) There are no miniatures or CGI crap here: this is really visceral stuff! You’ll feel every dizzying, bone-crunching moment of it. Unbelievably exciting! You need this!
Bravo to Shout! Factory for another great release; it is delightful to see gems like this resurrected for a new era. Sky Riders is featured on a two-disc set with another Coburn film, The Last Hard Men.
Originally published in Vol. #1, Issue 25.
Greg Woods
Greg Woods has been a film enthusiast since his teens, and began his writing "career" at the same time- prolific in capsule reviews of everything he had watched, first on index cards, then those hardcover dollar store black journals, then an old Mac IIsi. He founded The Eclectic Screening Room in 2001, as a portal to share his film love with the world, and find some like-minded enthusiasts along the way. In addition to having worked in the film industry for over two decades, he has been a co-programmer of films at Trash Palace, and a programmer/co-founder of the Toronto Film Noir Syndicate. He has also written for Broken Pencil, CU-Confidential, Micro-Film, and is currently working on his first novel. His secret desire is for someone to interview him for a podcast or a DVD extra.