Ace Drummond: A dusty, high-flying mess from the serial era

Is it worth your time?

If you have a soft spot for grainy, black-and-white Saturday matinee serials, you might actually enjoy this. It’s for the folks who love 1930s aviation gear, endless cliffhangers, and plot points that dissolve as quickly as they appear. If you need your movies to make sense or possess a coherent internal logic, you will probably hate every second of this.

Ace Drummond is essentially a 13-part headache wrapped in a leather flight jacket. You’ve got the “G-Man of the Sky” trope, which sounds like something a child invented on a playground, and it honestly doesn’t get much more sophisticated than that.

The whole thing takes place in Mongolia, but don’t expect any actual geography. It’s mostly just people pointing at maps, running into caves, and dodging shots from guys in robes who have terrible aim.

I found myself laughing at the transitions. One minute, someone is in Washington D.C., and the next, they’re somehow dodging a plane crash in the desert. The movie doesn't care about travel time, and frankly, neither does the audience after chapter three.

Odd moments that stuck

• The villain, 'The Dragon,' spends a suspicious amount of time hiding in shadows. It’s very theatrical.
• The sound of the biplanes is deafening, even when they’re clearly just sitting on the ground with the engine cut.
• Jean Rogers is doing a lot of heavy lifting here while the men just run around yelling about air routes.
• The fight choreography is just people slapping each other until someone falls off a cliff.

It’s weird to think about how this compares to something like Riders of Destiny, which at least had a consistent vibe. This feels more like a frantic scrapbook of ideas. It’s less like a movie and more like a fever dream you’d have after eating too much popcorn at a double feature.

Is it a classic? Not by a long shot. But there’s a certain charm to the way it refuses to slow down. It’s like the film is terrified that if it stops moving, you’ll realize there isn’t much of a story to begin with. ✈️

The dialogue is painfully stiff. People don’t talk; they make announcements. I caught myself checking my watch, but then something silly would happen—like a plane doing a loop-de-loop for no reason—and I’d get sucked back in for another five minutes of nonsense.

If you’re looking for a serious narrative, go find The Unknown Cavalier instead. This is strictly for the people who want to see men in goggles yelling at each other about international trade routes while bombs explode in the background.