An LAPD helicopter piloted by Trumbell (Don Meredith) is hijacked, the pair of hijackers wanting $100K in cash. Unbeknownst to police captain Ballard (Joseph Campanella) this is all a diversion. The criminal gang have really hijacked a plane carrying gold bullion and now have $10 million in gold bars on a disguised bus! Ballard, Trumbell and company have to try and unpick the complicated (though flawed - see below) plan by Hardings (Frank Gorshin) before it's too late...
This film just screams pilot for a planned TV series, which unfortunately was never made, which is a shame as it probably would have been pretty good. The story is straight forward, characterisation laid on hard and fast (though the characters are largely well-worn stereotypes) and the action exciting with many helicopter shots if pretty bloodless.
Harding's heist plan is mostly well worked out and even quite ingenious though you will wonder why they didn't switch the gold from the bus to another vehicle. Though as a police detective once said, if criminals never did anything stupid then the police would hardly ever catch anyone!
