The Bargain Nexus - A Thousand Heroes

With the exceptions of some slight dramatizations, A THOUSAND HEROES remains true to the essence of the story. Both veteran director Lamont Johnson and screenwriter Harve Bennett (STAR TREK III) are aided by a solid enough cast. Charlton Heston is quite good as the heroic Al Haynes (even if his being cast here seems a bit predictable). James Coburn scores as the tough-as-nails Sioux City airport emergency official who manages to get his team on the tarmac in time; and Richard Thomas, though he doesn't completely escape his "John Boy" image from "The Waltons", also does good work as the green rookie of Coburn's team.

A story as true as this with a miracle finish would seem tailor-made for the movies, and A THOUSAND HEROES works in that fashion. But we also see how Haynes and his crew managed to handle their in-flight emergency like the professionals they were, and how the Sioux City ground crew prepared for the kind of emergency that no airport, however big or small, would ever want to have on their hands. It is a movie well worth seeing for the cast and, most importantly, for this miraculous true story of survival.