TV Reviews : ‘Black Angel’ Takes to the Air in Plan to Nuke Las Vegas

“We were on our way to Las Vegas,” explains a woman hostage to her uniformed captor in tonight’s Showtime movie “Flight of Black Angel”--to which he, an Air Force flier with a nuclear cargo in his nearby jet and bats in his belfry, beatifically replies, “ That won’t be there much longer.”

If only it were possible to believe that Vegas was really in any danger of becoming the next Nagasaki, then “Flight of Black Angel” (premiering on the cable network tonight at 9) might have at least a modicum of suspense. And if only it had more exchanges on the loony level of the one above. . . . But this is no “Dr. Strangelove”--nor is it “Targets” when the psycho captain shoots up his entire family before taking to the air, nor is it “Top Gun” when his Air Force comrades set off to take him out in a series of aerial dogfights.

“What kind of animal slaughters his own family like that?” asks a military drone. Col. Ryan (Peter Strauss), the fruitcake’s superior officer, has the answer: “In the air, I heard him praying. Some kind of stuff from the Bible.” Yes, patricidal renegade Capt. Eddie Gordon (William O’Leary) is Hollywood’s favorite brand of nut, the sin-hating religious nut, here believing--without much background prompting from the minimal script--that he’s a nuclear “fire”-unleashing angel right out of the Book of Revelations. Hide the Scriptures, Mom and Dad!

The special effects generate a little excitement, but mostly this is for viewers who don’t mind seeing a lot of innocent folks get shot or blown up just so they can cheer when the baddie meets his inevitable end too. (“Black Angel” has repeat airings Thursday as well as March 4, 8 and 13.)