Drop Zone (film)

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Drop Zone
The movie poster for Drop Zone.
Directed by	John Badham
Produced by	D.J. Caruso Lauren Lloyd Wallis Nicita
Written by	Tony Griffin Guy Manos Peter Barsocchini John Bishop
Starring	Wesley Snipes Gary Busey
Music by	Hans Zimmer
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	December 9, 1994
Running time	101 min.
Language	English
Budget	$45,000,000 (estimated)
IMDb profile

Drop Zone is a 1994 action movie directed by John Badham. It stars Wesley Snipes, Gary Busey and Yancy Butler.

1 Plot synopsis
2 Cast
3 Trivia
4 External links

[edit] Plot synopsis

U.S. Marshals Pete (Wesley Snipes) and Terry (Malcolm Jamal-Warner) Nessip are assigned to escort federal prisoner Terry Leedy (Michael Jeter) to a new location after he's attacked at the Florida penitentiary where he was serving time.

Leedy is a computer genius and that is of interest to Ty Moncrief (Busey), a former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent with nefarious plans. He plans and pulls off a hijacking of the plane Leedy is travelling on with the Nessip brothers. Moncrief and his gang succeed in snatching Leedy and escaping. In the process, several people are killed (including Terry Nessip).

Pete Nessip vows to avenge his brother's death. This quest is complicated by the fact that his brother was implicated in the explosion that destroyed part of the hijacked plane and killed several people. As a result, Nessip is suspended from the Marshal's service while a federal investigation is conducted into the hijacking. So Nessip decides to do some investigating on his own. He suspects that the hijackers were skydivers and so he begins investigating in that area. He soon meets up with maverick skydiving instructor Jesse Crossman (Butler) and learns the pros and cons of skydiving from her, all the while trailing Moncrief and his team to an upcoming skydiving jump in Washington, D.C..

Meanwhile, we witness Moncrief's plan come to fruition: He plans to parachute (along with his team) into the DEA building and have Leedy hack into the top secret computer database located there. His plan is to sell the names and aliases of undercover DEA agents to big time drug dealers and make himself a very rich man. So the stage is set for a confrontation between Moncrief and his team and Nessip and Crossman's team.

[edit] Cast

Wesley Snipes-Pete Nessip
Gary Busey-Ty Moncrief
Yancy Butler-Jesse Crossman
Malcolm Jamal-Warner-Terry Nessip
Kyle Secor-Swoop
Rex Linn-Bobby
Corin Nemec-Selkirk
Michael Jeter-Earl Leedy

[edit] Trivia

Drop Zone was one of two skydiving action movies released in 1994; the other was Terminal Velocity.
The film bears some resemblance to the 1994 action movie Freefall, which is about a skydiving spy who uncovers a plot to expose the identities of undercover Interpol agents.[1]
Steven Seagal was originally intended to star for $15 million.
The insurance policies of Wesley Snipes and most of the cast precluded them from skydiving. However, Michael Jeter did his own stunts.
The fact that the two main characters — Nessip (who is African American) and Crossman (who is white) — are not linked romantically is contrary to Hollywood plot conventions. This might hint at the reluctance of the producers to stage an interracial romance.
The movie is the basis for an amusement park ride at Paramount Canada's Wonderland in Toronto.