Lionsgate / Maple Pictures

There was a time, even as late as the 90’s, when making an anti-American film was still taboo in Hollywood. Of course today, movies like Fahrenheit 9/11 are big money makers, but for many years, such films were discouraged. Air America is one of the rare exceptions to this rule. This may be due to the fact that it was disguised as a comedy about the Vietnam conflict, but no matter how you look at it, the film is quite critical of the US government, and it makes some pretty scathing accusations about our...involvement there. Only in a comedy would audiences openly accept the accusation that the US government ran drugs for rebels in Laos during Vietnam.

These accusations would have been taken much more seriously had the film actually have been any good. See, that’s the problem… if you are going to use a film to make a serious statement, it better be a darn good film. Otherwise, your statement will be lost in the mire of mediocrity. Such is the case with Air America. Films like Platoon and Good Morning Vietnam were able to make effective statements about the government’s actions in the 60’s because they were great films first. What we have here is a film that is average at best, which makes the political statements look average at well.