The Mystery of D.B Cooper: Film Review

Director: John Dower

To the uninitiated, the legend of DB Cooper may sound preposterous.

A man in a suit who in 1971 hijacked a plane, demanded $200,000, four parachutes and then jumped out of the back stairs of the craft into a destiny unknown - it's practically got mythic status written all over it.

Cooper was responsible for large scale aviation change and implementation of security protocols, but even more than that - he was responsible for a myth lasted since November 1971, given he was never found.

It's into this that John Dower's genial documentary dives headfirst as he gets wrapped up in the only unsolved airplane hijacking in America - and the fact everyone involved in the case has had a "I'm Spartacus" moment when asked if they know who he was.

It's this obsession which fuels the majority of this handsomely shot patchwork recreation doco as Dower delves into the mystery, essentially re-telling it and never providing a Eureka moment as it draws to a close.

From interviewer interjections to candid confessions from those involved that they've spent way too much of their lives obsessing about what happened to Cooper rather than living, Dower throws up a prism to the case, and delivers a film that's completely about the exaggerations of the story and of the points of view of many.

From flight attendants caught up in the moment, to pilots in the cockpit, through to journalists intrigued by the tale, Dower threads a multi-layered webbing of a story that's compelling to watch, but ultimately forgettable after it's finished.

It's about the belief in the mystery and Dower does a fine job of amassing all those edges into something that's nicely entertaining fluff for the conspiracy masses all packaged up in one 90 minute serving.