Fire Birds (released under the alternative title Wings of the Apache) is a 1990 American military action film directed by David Green and produced by William Badalato, Keith Barish, and Arnold Kopelson.

The storyline was conceived by Step Tyner, John K. Swensson, and Dale Dye,[2] and was developed into a screenplay written by Paul F. Edwards, Nick Thiel and David Taylor.

The film stars Nicolas Cage, Tommy Lee Jones, Sean Young, Bryan Kestner, and Bert Rhine, and follows Jake Preston, a United States Army attack helicopter pilot trained by flight instructor Brad Little to battle a drug cartel in South America.

However, a U.S. Army air assault on the cartel's fortified mountain compound is repelled by Eric Stoller (Bert Rhine), a skilled mercenary pilot flying a modified MD 500 Defender called the "Scorpion", who shoots down the assault force's UH-60 Black Hawks and attacks their AH-1 Cobra escorts; Jake Preston (Nicolas Cage), the sole surviving Cobra pilot, is forced to retreat.

Preston is enlisted in the Apache air-to-air combat training program led by flight instructor Brad Little (Tommy Lee Jones) and encounters Billie Lee Guthrie (Sean Young), his ex-girlfriend who broke off their relationship to pursue a separate career flying the OH-58 Kiowa scout helicopter, and has been assigned to assist the Apaches as their target designator and spotter.

Preston's arrogance and loose improvised style earns him the respect and chagrin of Little, who helps him overcome an ocular dominance disability that interferes with the Apache's visual input.

The Drug Enforcement Administration leads a mission to apprehend the cartel's leaders, and the Apache team deploys to South America to assist them.

The consensus summarizes: "Despite the talent on board, Fire Birds is little more than a subpar military adventure sporting video game-like action, outdated philosophy, and uneven acting.

"[15] Hal Hinson, writing in The Washington Post said, "Fire Birds is a primitive dogfight movie, with Nicolas Cage and Sean Young as its stars, that serves as a kind of extended commercial for the U.S. Army and its AH-64 Gunship helicopter".

"[18] Vincent Canby writing in The New York Times saw the film as having "many laughs, all of them unintentional" while pointing out that actor Cage "plays the sort of B-picture role that might once have suited William Gargan.

[7] The Variety Staff, felt Fire Birds had a "tongue-in-cheek aspect" and that "Camaraderie and rat-a-tat-tat dialog may have started out as fun a la Howard Hawks' classic Only Angels Have Wings but emerges at times as a satire of the genre."

"[17] Similarly, Owen Gleiberman writing for Entertainment Weekly viewed Fire Birds as "a third-rate knockoff of Top Gun and Blue Thunder".

He did however, reserve praise for the stunts and visuals in the film saying, "the climactic air battle is well staged, though without the edge-of-the-envelope dread that made the Top Gun dogfights genuinely thrilling."

But in summing up his overall negativity for the movie, he expressed his dissatisfaction by lamenting, "the film practically pats itself on the back for featuring villains that have been in the news recently.

"[20] Film critic Leonard Maltin's review was similar: "...Standard military issue with a ruptured-duck script and a complete lack of romantic chemistry between professional rivals Cage and Young.