Brando makes the movie. Ernest Borgnine would have been a joke. One of the Oscars biggest mistakes was awarding him Best Actor for Marty, followed by Best Picture for Shakespeare in Love.
The movie was about Michael. Brando’s character was a sideshow and Brando was the joke with that cotton stuffed in his mouth reading off the cue cards.
For my money, the biggest casting mistake of all time was Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman. That role was meant for Robert Duvall.
I posit that it was Ernest Borgnine who made Airwolf what it was: pretty darn awesome.
To a 12 year old at least, which I was at the time.