The Under 700 Club: Charlie Victor Romeo (2013)

The film has recently hit Blu-ray.

The Under 700 Club: Reviews in under 700 words for movies with less than 700 logs on Letterboxd (log count as of this publication: 425)

As I've gotten older, I've become an increasingly nervous flyer. When I was a kid, I would bounce around the country (unaccompanied!), from airport to airport, layover to layover, between my bi-coastal parents. I never paid much attention to the plane itself - it wasn't about the journey, it was about the destination. 

When I fly as an adult, I notice every bump, every odd noise, the speed of takeoff, the reasons behind a delay, the tone of the pilot's voice. I spend the extra money avoiding budget airlines, even if it's both more expensive and less direct because if there's one thing I don't want to cut corners on, it's defying God's will.

Now, I have an honest reason to be nervous. It's because I've seen Charlie Victor Romeo. 

In 1999, Bob Berger, Patrick Daniels and Irving Gregory of the theatre company Collective: Unconscious created Charlie Victor Romeo, a play that uses real cockpit voice recordings (CVRs) of various plane crashes and reenacts those final moments in the cockpit live on stage. It's just a group of actors perfectly re-enacting the final moments of these people's lives - that's the spectacle. 

In 2013, the film adaptation (essentially just a filmed version of the stage play) premiered and then seemed to disappear not soon after. 

I actually saw this film when it first hit streaming, back in roughly 2014, my jetsetting days. I found it harrowing (to say the least) but for some reason, it never bothered me outside the confines of the show. It was a play I thought about often, wondering if I would ever have the opportunity to see it performed live, but it more or less disappeared not long after. I would check in occasionally with a Google search to see if it had any more life in it, but the results were often disappointing.

You can imagine my surprise when a Blu-ray release from Dekanalog, a partner label of Vinegar Syndrome, was announced last December. I couldn't believe anyone else still remembered this movie!

And not only is it finally on disc, it's a fantastic release - which, knowing those two companies, is no surprise. 

I bought it right away. (A note: It should be illegal for the Vinegar Syndrome app to accept Apple Pay. It's so quick and easy to buy things that you don't even realize movies are $30 before it's done.)

Not only is the finely packaged disc complete with a ton of extras (a director's commentary, scenes from live performances, and informational features about both plane crashes and the show itself), it also includes a pair of 3D glasses so you can watch the film in anaglyphic 3D. (A note: My increasingly bad eyes meant I turned the 3D version off almost immediately, but I'm sure it'll be a great feature for others.)

After ten years of growing air travel apprehension, I was surprised to see that my attitude hadn't changed too much. It's still an excellent piece of theatre and I couldn't believe it wasn't poking at my real-life anxiety even more.

Until the final scene.

(A note: I'm running out of words in this column, so I'm just going to have to spoil multiple scenes. Please go watch it first. Even better, go buy it - they're running low.)

Up until this concluding reenactment, I kept thinking this isn't too bad. In the first scene, they land the plane safely! Great! A few scenes later, a military plane crashes into a flock of birds immediately after takeoff and crashes. At least that'll never be me!

But they save the "best" for last. With a shutdown engine and no flight controls, the pilots of United Flight 232 miraculously land the plane (narrowly avoiding an emergency landing on a six-lane highway). At the very last second, however, the wings dip and they crash - killing half of the passengers on board.

As the lights go black, the silence is deafening. 

It's the sound of people no longer existing. 

Which I will now think about every single time I'm on a plane from now on.

It's an excellent play and an equally great movie - one I may never watch again. 

Want to commission a review? Order from this list and you’ll get one in 30 days!