[REVIEW] Airforce The Movie: The Next ‘Mat Kilau’ Level Blockbuster with a Lot to Ponder

Starring Dato’ Adi Putra, Aiman Hakim Ridza and Nas-T, the film features a star-studded cast and even cameos. The likes of Scha Al-Yahya, Carmen Soo and Aqasha also appeared in the movie together with Jack Tan, Pablo Amirul, Sara Ali and Johan Asari.

The movie sees J Revolusi director Zulkarnain Azhar join arms with Frank See, the writer of PASKAL in an epic Malaysian rescue movie set on the war-torn fictional island Nonburi. A PASKAU squad led by commander Lejen was sent to protect Malaysia’s humanitarian efforts on the island but was met with violence and resistance by the local militants. The PASKAU squad and a few volunteers had to flee for safety after their plane was shot down with rocket launchers.

Despite the movie being called ‘Airforce’, the story focuses more on the PASKAU squad and crash survivors. So instead of a full-blown Top Gun-like flick, the movie is closer to the ups and downs of Saving Private Ryan, with air support, of course. But don’t worry, you will be served with a satisfying amount of aerial dogfights between the Malaysian army and its opponents.

Personally, the movie’s strongest suit may not be its action sequences but more how the characters were written. For the first time in a while, Malaysian action movie characters had layered conflicts, unique character tropes and most importantly, character development.

Because of that, we have to single out the character LEJEN and Adi Putra’s portrayal of him. First appearing as an equanimous, commanding leader, his confidence dwindled down with every mistake he makes. Such character tropes and development may have been written in a similar strain in Hollywood but Adi Putra’s performance adds freshness to the character profile giving LEJEN a strong sense of originality.

Unfortunately, the film is far from perfect. As the directors focused on the explosive aspects of the film, some of the dialogue sounds a tad bit whacky. Understandable to a certain extent but we were mostly disturbed by the structure of the movie, both the plot and pacing, made the film seem rushed.

Beyond its flaws, we can dare say the movie has heart, and it’s the heart that carried the movie from the first second up until the credits. With the quality level of acting up to the rich amount of fighter jet footage, we can sense a lot of hard work was put into it. Rocky roads won’t spoil your road trip and in this case, it didn’t.