Released direct to DVD this past January, Brian Clyde's The Hunt for Eagle One starred Mark Dacascos as a US Marine and Theresa Randle as a chopper pilot who must rescue some POWs and thwart evil terrorist forces! (It also featured an embarrassed-looking Rutger Hauer for a few seconds.)

Released direct to video this past June, Henry Crum's The Hunt for Eagle One: Crash Point stars Mark Dacascos as a US Marine and Theresa Randle as a chopper pilot who must reclaim a high-tech defense weapon and thwart evil terrorist forces! (It also features an emabarrassed-looking Jeff Fahey for a few seconds.)

Produced by the tireless schlock merchant Roger Corman, the Eagle One flicks look to give the action fans some simple rah-rah heroics in a setting that loosely (very loosely) resembles the war we're currently participating in. But really, these flicks are about as realistic as Toy Story. Dacascos and Randle possess very little in the way of screen presence, either together or alone, and the rest of the cast is made up of plainly evil villains and plainly generic soldiers.

The action sequences are a little bit better this time around, thereby settling that age-old argument: Who's the better director: Brian Clyde or Henry Crum? And while hardcore military aficionados may find a few stray nuggets worth sifting through, I suspect that most "hardcore military aficionados" will either be laughing directly AT Crash Point -- or they'll be so annoyed by the proceedings that the DVD won't even make it to chapter 4.

Low-budget, simplistic, and completely awash in obvious jingoism and knee-jerk xenophobia, The Hunt for Eagle One: Crash Point might prove diverting enough to the indiscriminate fans of all things war movie-related -- but there's a reason this sequel hit the video store shelves less than six months after its equally doofy predecessor: They're both lame.

Plus the ongoing voice-over narration tells you all you need to know about the movie: It was slapped together very quickly and with very little in the quality control department -- because war is a profitable business, even where movies are concerned.

The DVD

Video: The anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) transfer is as good as it gets for a low-end flag-waver like this one.

Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1 audio, with extra boom in the explosions, just so you're getting your money's worth. English subtitles are available.

Extras: Just a bunch of Sony trailers.

Final Thoughts

It's a straightforward and seriously simple-minded little war flick that's not so much downright terrible as it is simply cheap and uninteresting. Fans of the genre could probably do worse, but you'd probably have to go back to some Chuck Norris flicks to do so.