The programme is very much a military one and the military test pilot F.E. Cochrane (Malcolm McDowell) is somebody Murphy served with in Vietnam and has an intense dislike of.
Getting caught up in the tech they've been handed to evaluate Murphy and Lymangood decide to "poke around" and use it to surveil Cochrane.
No good will come of this.
CW: 80s copaganda, objectification of women and a bit of racist stereotyping/language
This is a weird mix of conspiracy/whistle-blower drama and high adrenaline helicopter action most of which is contained in the last act. It's not quite as gung-ho tech-porn as you'd think but also not really a maverick cop thing either and there's a touch of Vietnam trauma chucked in as well.
There's a more interesting role than expected for Murphy's girlfriend Kate (Candy Clark) who's quite forceful and ends up with the maguffin while Murphy is acting as a kind of guardian angel from above.
What's great is that Director John Badham managed to balance the differences in scale so well so that the hunt for the critical surveillance recording and dodging F16s in the city skyline interleave perfectly.
It is very 80s in construction and creaky in places especially around all the "cop banter" which almost looks like parody now but overall works well, 7/10 not as dated as it could have been.