Sadly Over-hyped

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Going into Blackout Effect (Otherwise known as 747) I expected yet another plane related disaster flick. You know the ones, where there is something wrong with a plane and it's down to the crew and those on the ground to guide them home.I was pleasantly surprised to see that it's not, it's a perfectly watchable little thriller.It tells the story of an air traffic controller who appears to make a mistake and causes two planes to collide. But the more investigation is done into the matter the more it appears there is more to the story.Starring Eric "I was almost Marty McFly" Stoltz and underrated Charles Martin Smith this thriller managed to get my attention from the get go. Truth be told it does get a tad far fetched by the end but never goes too far.Well written and tense this is well worth anyones time despite not being groundbreaking.The Good:Great ideaDecent performancesThe Bad:Hit and miss in placesThings I Learnt From This Movie:Air traffic controller jobs look insanely stressful

A p***ed off air traffic controller builds a system to control planes in flight. Kind of a poor mans Mission Impossible feel to it at the end.Maybe it was dull, but it was shown just 3 days before 9/11 WTC crash.So when I saw the first tower get hit, I thought of this movie, and started thinking of how those planes could have been under remote control.Smith controls the planes with a dish tied into the FAA's computer. It made me think...could this be possible? New commerical jets are all "fly by wire", computer controlled, where take offs and landings are all done by computer.Hack in and take over is what stuck in my mind about this movie.

John Dantley investigates a midair collision between two planes that killed over 130 people. At first it appears human error is to blame, however the controller, Henry Drake, insists that a blackout causes one of the planes to disappear temporally from his screen. Dantley investigates to find a history of equipment failures and complaints has not been recorded and that Drake may be the most likely suspect. However with time things begin to look more complex than he first thought.The story essentially is a condemnation of lack of investment in air-traffic control in contrast with spiralling air traffic. It could have coldly looked at that and been damning in effect, but instead it tries to turn it into a thriller and ruins it's credibility as a serious film. The glitch that caused the plane crash is far to specific to have it represent the whole system of the failure and Drake is far to suspicious (what was he doing on the CCTV? It's never satisfactorily revealed) to be an `everyman' type - in fact Drake is totally misused as the film changes his character to create a `tense' `standoff' finish to the film. Why?Another example of the plot stretching to make it more of a TVM thriller than a serious movie is the way that Dantley's ex-girlfriend was on one of the planes that crashed. This adds nothing to the story and only succeeds in clouding the issue. The main point of the film is valid - that systems are close to breaking point and are not up to the job, but it's lost in a bigger conspiracy, Dantley's personal loss and Drake's unlikely actions at the end.Charles Martin Smith is good right up till the very unlikely last 30 minutes, but Stoltz is mixed. At times he seems OK but some scenes are terrible - the one near the end where he confronts the site manager with a forced emotion and bad dialogue is a good (bad) example.Overall, this has a valid point to make and it makes it well for much of the film. However the makers added too much baggage (a thriller climax, a dead ex etc) to make it work. Some scenes are great but mostly this is a C movie - and only for trying hard.

The idea of the movie is quite good to me: finding a quick responsible for a mid-air collision (in this case, the air traffic controller). However, it was not exploited correctly. The entire movie is full of technical mistakes regarding the aviation and air traffic control domain. This shows that the producers didn't care about their lack of information. Also, the actors do not seem very sincere unfortunately.As to conclude, the entire movie is not worth watching it.