Why so much hype?

What a waste of my time!!!

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

A cheap, ineptly-made action thriller which tries to mix some TOP GUN-style aeroplane heroics with an on-the-ground plot involving Rutger Hauer seeking revenge on Robert Patrick for shooting him down in Iraq six years previously after he went berserk and tried to shoot down a passenger plane. Obviously the budget was spent on uniting the two once-were-great actors; Hauer for his memorable turn as an android in BLADE RUNNER, and Patrick for his excellent portrayal of the fiendish "liquid metal man" in TERMINATOR 2.Sadly, this film wastes their talents and makes them both look bad; Patrick seems to be a one-note actor here with an expressive face but little else, while Hauer is pure ham, laughable and unthreatening. You won't have heard of the rest of the cast, and you won't recognise them either. I may have been tired while watching this film but not many movies have me struggling to stay awake. The acrobatics and shooting in the sky have always been boring and thrill-free for me, while the tank chase at the end seems to be from a different film; as Hauer suddenly changes from low-key threat to all-out psychopath. This ending is kind of fun but it comes as too little, too late. TACTICAL ASSAULT is a typically generic (just look at that title) late '90s straight-to-video flick; seemingly made without any passion for the genres it covers and with no talent whatsoever. Give it a miss!

Magnus, I too was annoyed that no one on the set noticed the USAF doctor had one of her shoulder boards backwards. It was also a joke to see Hauer stuffed into that tight USAF uniform with his long hair. Whatever happened to preparing for a movie role? Hauer definitely needed to drop about 40 lbs and get a freakin military haircut.I enjoyed the aircraft scenes but it could have been a much better movie is someone had paid more attention to detail. Top Gun wasn't a whole lot better when it came to an F-14 in one scene with certain types of missiles and fuel pods, then in the next scene, what is suppose to be the same F-14, now has a completely different set up.I think one of the best scenes of a military aircraft in a movie was the F-18 Hornet getting shot down by the missile in "Behind Enemy Lines" with Owen Wilson and Gene Hackman.It is nice to see Robert Patrick doing such a good job now as the Colonel on the TV series, "The Unit".Don

(Warning: Some spoilers ahead.)What an incredibly crappy movie. It makes Iron Eagle 2 seem good.The story is as follows: Captain Holiday (Rutger Hauer) gets shot down by his friend Banning (Robert Patrick) to stop him from shooting down a iraqi airliner filled with innocent civilians. Six years later Holiday returns to take his revenge. Among other things he, sitting in a tank, chases Banning (now a colonel) and his pregnant wife over a field. He manages to fire shells and drive the tank at the same time. After getting the tank blown up by a bazooka, he miraculously survives and steals a fighter jet. With it he shoots down a number of allied fighters before attacking the NATO headquarters in an attempt to kill Banning's wife.An extra bonus is that major Baxter (who Holiday hangs in her office) has put the rank insignia on her right shoulder on backwards. Elegant.

The late 1990s seems to be packed with dozens of low-budget, aerial action combat movies, in the same way that Top Gun generated a wave of wanna-be movies (e.g., "Iron Eagle," "Into The Sun," "Flight of Black Angel," etc.) after its release in the 80s. "Tactical Assault" is just one of those military movies that hits the viewer with standard issue plot and an incredibly inconsistent storyline. It almost makes the low-budget Dolph Lundgren movies look good by comparison. Basically the story of "Tactical Assault" revolves around one insane Airforce officer (Holiday) attempting to inflict his anger and revenge on another (Banning), all while a military operation rages on in Eastern Europe. It's basically the air-to-air version of "Dead Calm" combined with "Death Race 2000" in a sense. This movie is essentially insanity bordering on comedy. The funniest scene is in the end where Colonel Banning says "hey, it's just a civillian vehicle" about a dozen times to Captain Holiday who's about to 'accidentally' destroy a white, American cadillac driving haphazardly down a road. The only redeeming value to this movie is Robert Patrick, who does a surprisingly good job as the hunted Colonel Banning.