Drop Zone

When Gary Busey shows up wearing a pair of Zebra Pants, you realize that the amazing movie you are watching on Encore is going to grab your balls tightly and twist them slightly. After all, what wouldn’t be amazing about a bunch of criminal skydivers who hack into government computer systems to find out the undercover identities of DEA agents so they can sell the information to drug kingpins for bucks? Wesley Snipes joins the fun as a Federal Agent in charge of transporting the skydiving crew’s computer specialist by plane to prison. He doesn’t know that those skydivers are going to hijack the plane, kill his brother, scream maniacally at a little girl while making menacing faces, and “break out” their hacker. Luckily they have parachutes and guns. A daring prison escape at 35,000 feet. A little bit of exposition in the aftermath tells us how badass and impossible this feat truly is. Now Wesley Snipes has to infiltrate the underground world of competitive skydiving to find the sonofabitches that killed his brother. He loses his badge, of course, so he has to go all maverick and lone wolf. Wesley is the Lone Wolf. He goes to a skydiving school and learns to skydive by screaming like a goddamn chimpanzee while plummeting towards the earth. Or maybe a rhesus monkey. After a few jumps, he is ready to join an elite team of divers that will jump over the White House on the 4th of July during a dazzling fireworks display. It’s the only way to get at the bad guys because they can't pass up the adrenaline-pumping experience and they’ll use the jump as an opportunity to break into another government building. In skydiver world, jumpers hang out in bars and speak their own language of blue skies and burn ins. If you look out of place, four big dudes in green Adidas track suits will approach you, intimidate you, and fight you. But if you have an “in” with a hot skydiving instructor, she’ll help you out. She has friends. One of them is a dude named Swoop and he’s the hero of the story, not Snipes. Swoop is an unemployed bum (or hobo, if you prefer) who lives only to skydive. He doesn’t sleep on the streets like normal hobos (or bums, if you prefer); he sleeps on those window washer platforms among dirty rags and Snickers wrappers. Patrick Chewing. The Statchew of Liberty. Dickers. He wears his jumpsuit and his parachute everywhere he goes so he can make instant escapes. He pulls crazy moves during competitions like releasing his main chute so it wraps around an asshole skydiver while he parachutes through the sky. This is called “gift-wrapping”. Back-slapping and overly enthusiastic gestures and yelling and guffawing typify the average skydiver. So do colorful, thin jumpsuits unzipped to the belly button and spread open to reveal layers of thick, manly chest hair. (I didn’t realize that skydiving had its own unique culture until I watched this movie. It’s kind of like how I learned about the underground surfing movement from Point Break.) There are a bunch of fights between Wesley's crew and Busey's crew, including a bathroom brawl and a cat fight between our heroic female Instructor and the Evil Whore from the Badguy Team. The Instructor bashes the Whore’s head with the lid of a copy machine while the machine makes Xeroxes. I don’t remember how it all ends, but it has something to do with Gary Busey’s huge teeth and huge hair and a parachute and a Mack truck's windshield. It’s pretty fucking great. See it. It’s called Drop Zone.