No Return

At the outset of this middling stand-alone from Battles (The Cleaner), Wes Stewart, a cameraman with a TV crew, is filming in the desert several hours north of Los Angeles when an F-18 Navy jet crashes just yards away. Wes makes a valiant effort to save the pilot, but the plane goes up in flames before Wes can extract him from the cockpit. Navy personnel question Wes, who’s hailed as a hero, but an article in the newspaper the next day is a surprise to Wes because the accompanying photo of the pilot isn’t of the man he tried to pull out of the plane. The ensuing attempt at a coverup, plus a dark secret from Wes’s past, threaten the lives of Wes and his TV crew. The succeeding twists will shock and surprise only those readers who are new to the thriller genre. Agent: John Hawkins & Associates. (Jan.)