Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

Brilliant and touching

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Known as "On Dangerous Ground" in the UK.A big nuclear company wants to take land (Choke Canyon) away from a peaceful scientist who is doing safe energy research work there to dumb radioactive waste. Obviously the peaceful guy isn't going to give them it. Nuclear guys will do anything to get rid of him, including killing him. Every one of the Nuclear companies goons come for him, but he dispatches them, even "Big" Bo Svensson, in typical 80s fashion.Film gained a bit of notoriety in the 80s due to the theme song by Mike & The Mechanics "Silent Running (On Dangerous Ground)" being a hit in 1986. Song was more of a hit than the film. Tune is nowhere to be found in the movie though. Stunt work is great too. Check out the ending aerial joust with all the planes. Awesome.Has a nice environmental message, which I always like too. Mildly recommended.

It's really difficult to explain why this movie is so unknown and low-rated. I've watched it many years ago, as a child, and now found it's DVD release at amazon.com. It's still really great! If you are the fan of 80's action movies - like e.g. Delta Force, American Ninja, Rambo, Commando or James Bond series - you certainly won't be disappointed by this one. This is a very well-done action thriller, with some great stunts and action sequences and - above all - fantastic score by Sylvester Levay (see also Cobra, but he is best known for his Airwolf theme). There are also some really good actors starring in "Choke Canyon", like Stephen Collins, Lance Henriksen and Bo Svenson whose performances make this movie really worth of seeing. So I recommend "Choke Canyon" (AKA "On dangerous ground") to all who like some good, old and light action thrillers.

Park logic at the door, because the science behind the scientific experiments in "Choke Canyon" is ridiculous. The acting by everyone except Lance Henriksen is below average. Speaking of Lance, his part is not particularly well written, nor very important. In other words a waste of Henriksen. The only redeeming factor is some nice red rock photography, and some really wild and impressive stunt work. I really can't recommend sitting through all the nonsense that precedes the aerial acrobatics however. If the story had been more logical and better developed, this could have been a fairly decent film, but unfortunately that was not to be. Ah me! - MERK

This is a pretty standard low-budget actioner running just over 1 1/2h, it does have some points of interest: The cinematography is not bad, some cool helicopter action and the heroine Janet Julian is a looker. It is undemanding action fare, you can park your brain and kill 1 1/2h or so, I have seen it a couple of times, it's ok. 5/10PS. The music video for Mike And the Mechanic's "Silent Running" is using scenes from this movie.