Who payed the critics

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

"Skyjacked" isn't a terrible film by any means but the plot runs out of momentum about 20 minutes before the end. By the time the film reaches its climax, I just wanted to get it to get all over with. Charlton Heston plays a similar character to the one he played in the "Universal" film, "Airport '75." I understand that the actor was reticent to appear in another film that involved an airplane only 2 years after "Skyjacked." There are a few bits of action here and there but not enough to sustain interest. It's a shame as this film had some promise.

While an unseen passenger buys some lipstick, lead pilot Charlton Heston (as Henry "Hank" O'Hara) prepares for a flight from Oakland to Minneapolis-St. Paul. Unfortunately, the "Global Airways" plane is going to suffer from some significant human turbulence. It starts when TV's pretty "Partridge Family" teenager Susan Dey (as Elly Brewster) visits the rest room. She dashes out to notify the crew there is a message on the mirror, "Bomb on plane. Divert to Anchorage Alaska. No joke no tricks death," written in lipstick...MGM and producer Walter Seltzer got some skilled professionals to work on this film, to no avail. It was obviously intended to make the same box office flight as "Airport" (1970), and is a tepid variation of that all-star mega-hit. However, "Skyjacked" is a bad trip. The home video sleeve markets it as a "Cult Camp Classic," which is making lemonade with a lemon. Soldering passenger James Brolin (as Jerome "Jerry" Weber) threatens to over-camp Mr. Heston, but the older actor conserves his strength for a spectacular finish.*** Skyjacked (1972-05-24) John Guillermin ~ Charlton Heston, James Brolin, Yvette Mimieux, Roosevelt Grier

Another Seventies Disaster, a Disaster Movie that Viewers Today Love to Poke Fun and some even call these Things Camp Classics. But in 1972 it was a Stinker and no Amount of Glossing Over its Inanities could make it anything more than a Boring Bunch of Passengers on board a Commercial Flight with a Former Military Pilot hoping to keep Control of "His" Airplane from a Nutjob Determined to Fill Two Hours of Screen Time with Clichéd Scene Chewing among the Clichéd People that Populate these Things.Bland, Hardly Exciting Waste of Time Watching Blurry Flashbacks that Attempt to Add Weight to the Proceedings and come off as nothing more than Sopa Opera Filler. There isn't an Interesting Character Aboard of the 100 Souls and the Tension is too Choreographed and Badly Edited to Amount to Much. This is Anything but Sure Handed Filmmaking. What's with all the Zooms to the Lipstick Counter, wouldn't One be Enough. The Movie has got no Heart and no Intrigue and Yes, it may be Laughable but at the Expense of Your Wasted Time and Trying to get Any Fun from this is Futile. It is just Plain Bad from the Awkward Beginning to the Overly Staged Ending.

A tough day on the job for Global Air pilot Hank O'Hara: First, he learns that his ex-mistress will be playing head stewardess on his Flight 502 to Minneapolis. Then, en route, he discovers a lipstick-scrawled warning that there is a bomber on board and that he must divert to Anchorage, Alaska. And later, after making a landing there during a zero-visibility thunderstorm, he is compelled to continue the mad bomber's odyssey by flying into the restricted airspace of Mother Russia! Anyway, that is the setup of 1972's "Skyjacked," an entertaining affair released during the early '70s craze for airport/disaster flicks. A handsome-looking picture with a roster of great actors playing essentially one-dimensional, underdeveloped types, it nevertheless moves along nicely and is more than competently directed by John Guillermin.Now, as to the identity of that mad bomber, which isn't revealed until the film's midpoint, we have the following list of first-class suspects: There's the increasingly rabid and pie-eyed Vietnam vet, played by James Brolin; a jazz cellist, played by former L.A. Rams defensive lineman Rosey (here, "Roosevelt") Grier; an older couple relocating to Minneapolis (Ross Elliott and, in her final screen role, the still-beautiful Jeanne Crain, who sadly doesn't get more than six lines of dialogue in the entire film!); a pretty young girl (Susan Dey, in her first film, herself flying high on the success of her wildly popular TV program "The Partridge Family"); a U.S. senator (Walter Pidgeon) on a mysterious mission for the president; and the seemingly inevitable woman going into labor while in flight (Mariette Hartley, whose delivery strikes the viewer as the easiest one ever filmed; I swear that I've had more difficult bowel movements!). Rounding out this cast, by the way, are Yvette Mimieux as the head stewardess (that WAS the correct term back then!), Leslie Uggams as another stewardess (her "Screw you!" may be the picture's single best line), Claude Akins and John Fiedler as air traffic controllers, and, oh, as Capt. O'Hara, Charlton Heston, an old hand at bringing his people safely to the promised land. All are just fine, especially Chuck and Brolin, whose characters are the only ones here with anything resembling depth.As might be expected, "Skyjacked" begins with a light tone but eventually turns surprisingly grim, especially when the Boeing 707 enters Soviet airspace. To the film's credit, the Russians here are shown in a very positive light, and the sight of one of their fighter jets waggling its wings in farewell before it zooms off may be the picture's most touching moment. Modern-day viewers may marvel at the ease with which our whackadoodle bomber brings guns and hand grenades aboard an airplane, not to mention the in-flight smoking (even by the captain!) and the ordering of a Bloody Mary by a very pregnant woman, but let's remember, after all, that these WERE the good ol' days of 1972. In all, "Skyjacked" is nothing demanding and nothing artful, but it sure is fun. I originally watched this film on a brain-dead Friday night after a long, hard week of work, and found that it fit the bill perfectly....