High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Afterburn is a 1992 dramatic film written and produced for television, based on a true story where one woman takes on the United States military and General Dynamics, manufacturer of the F-16 jet fighter aircraft that took her husband`s life. The docudrama starred Laura Dern, Robert Loggia, and Vincent Spano. The film`s name is derived from the "Afterburner" bar where the central character (Janet Harduvel), who works as a waitress, met her future husband, a setting that forms the focus of the first part of the film.