The endless search for DB Cooper continues – on the big screen.
America’s current obsession with true crime stories means that the unresolved 1971 flight of 305 Northwest Orient from Portland is greater than ever.
The most recent cinematic storytelling – after the release of new releases on HBO and the History Channel, respectively, just over a year ago – is “I’m DB Cooper.”
The DB Cooper is, of course, the name most widely associated with the true skyjacker who disappeared 50 years ago after jumping from a Boeing 727 over the Northwest Pacific. His real name is unknown.
The FBI eventually dropped the case in 2016 after searching for hundreds of suspects.
“I Am DB Cooper” premieres on April 16 at Seattle International Film Festival. Tickets are on sale now.
The following is a summary of the film:
The identity of the DB Cooper hijacker remains one of PNW’s great mysteries. In 1971, a man hijacked a plane and flew a parachute over southern Washington with his ransom money, never to see him again. There have been many suspects over the last 50 years, none of whom have been definitively confirmed… so far?
Two sibling hunt brothers chase a sick old man named Rodney Bonnefield out of jail in 2016 and are surprised when he announces that he is the real DB Cooper. Interested in Bonnefield’s confession, they bring a little salt to their interrogation of his past, only to discover that many details are lined up in ways only the true Cooper would have known. Asked to accompany Bonnefield to recover the unexplored portion of the ransom money, they decide to follow the crumbs to an uncertain conclusion.
Director TJ Regan, like bounty hunters, is fascinated by Bonnefield, but he also holds the potential in his hand, more content to present our fascination with unanswered questions than to give a definitive truth that can never be confirmed. .
This is TJ Regan’s second film, after 2020 “Year of emptiness”, a documentary that does not interest basketball player Darius Bazley and the NBA rule, one and the same.
The trailer for “I Am DB Cooper” (see above) is fun, but as the film’s synopsis shows, do not expect to leave the cinema with a better understanding of who hijacked Flight 305. Over the years, many, many, many Many people have confessed that he is – or knows – the skyjacker.
As John Dower, director of the 2020 documentary “The Mystery of DB Cooper” said:
“All these people have a DB Cooper-shaped hole in their lives.”
– Douglas Perry
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