The Concorde… Airport ’79

The Airport franchise comes to a close with this entertaining yet particularly ludicrous entry, with the narrative following several characters, including Alain Delon’s Paul, Sylvia Kristel’s Isabelle, and George Kennedy’s Joe, as they’re faced with possible death after a string of attacks on the title aircraft. Filmmaker David Lowell Rich, working from Eric Roth’s screenplay, delivers a relatively brisk endeavor that benefits from its ongoing emphasis on appreciatively larger-than-life plot developments – with, in addition, the thoroughly melodramatic bent of the various characters’ comings and goings enhancing the perpetually watchable atmosphere. And although the picture does suffer from its share of ill-fated attributes, including special effects that are, to say the least, far from convincing, The Concorde… Airport ’79, which boasts its fair share of undeniably exciting sequences, builds towards an entertainingly overblown finale that ensures the whole thing concludes on a stirring, positive note – with the end result a satisfying capper to a remarkably consistent series of films.

*** out of ****