[Rating: Minor Rock Fist Down]
In Theaters Friday, January 13
A B-grade action banger that’s too often afraid of its own sensibilities, Plane is a creature plagued with terminal duality. On the one hand, it’s a Gerard Butler action two-hander with a liberal allowance of sledgehammer kills, neck breaks, anti-tank gun snipes, and even a decapitation, yet it also thinks the audience and its characters should take this seriously…which they shouldn’t. Not nearly fun enough to exist as pure escapism, and far too ridiculous to take at face value, Plane is a vessel without a (air)port.
The film opens with Scottish commercial airline captain Brodie Torrance (Butler) rushing through airport security to make his New Year’s Eve flight. Brodie is walk-talking to his adult daughter, Daniela (Haleigh Hekking), about his plans to see her in the near future, and seems eager to pilot the flight that will make that happen. A small hitch arises during Brodie’s pre-flight check, where he learns that a U.S. Federal Marshall and murder fugitive, Louis Gaspare (Mike Colter), need to hitch a ride.
A bigger hiccup comes in the form of a massive storm that the airline’s corporate stooge insists they fly through to save on fuel, which leads to a lightning strike that knocks out Brodie’s avionics at 40,000 feet. Making a frantic descent that would make Sully or even Denzel Washington proud, Brodie and his co-pilot manage to put the aircraft down on a small, remote island in the Philippines. Unable to contact the outside world for help, and with only a limited stock of supplies, Brodie (inexplicably) uncuffs Gaspare and takes him on a jungle hike to look for help. The pair subsequently learn that the island is run by a violent terrorist cell funded by ransom kidnappings, which the baddies have begun prepping for in earnest since Brodie and Gaspare’s departure from the crash site (and surviving passengers).
The stage is thus set for a Die Hard-on-a-deserted island scenario, yet the picture consistently has trouble getting and maintaining its bearings. What’s worse, the set-up for Plane feels like a bit of a double clutch in the first act, with the eponymous aircraft in flight and then in trouble after just 15 minutes or so, only to restart again for the next half hour before the script’s central conflict (terrorists) leans on the principles. And so, while the movie gets the characters into the primary setting somewhat quickly, it takes far too long to land them in the trouble that will define the back end.
This makes for a rushed 2nd act, where Cpt. Bodie and Gaspare have no time for even the barest character development, rushing instead towards the big bad of the picture (who doesn’t even appear until the halfway point). Like the passengers, flight crew, and Daniela, the heavies of Plane are just stand-ins for an archetype that feels like it was meant to be colored-in later. The script offers some throwaway lines to offer motivation for the leads, like when Bodie explains that he must rescue everyone because he’s, “the captain,” yet none of this is very convincing, and again, feels more like character and story placeholders than actual development.
When director Jean-François Richet leans into the brainless action and commits to the basic outline of the movie’s conceit, it is fun, though. Butler can (and often does) sleepwalk through most any action scene and still sell it, and there’s some classic 80s-esque set pieces that harken back to the obvious influences of Plane (i.e., Delta Force, Navy SEALS, etc). Yet again, though, the film seems to be of two minds. Plane positions itself as a buddy action movie early on with the introduction of Gaspare, yet most of the narrative’s heavy action lifting is done by a squad of black ops shooters arranged by airline crisis fixer, Scarsdale (Tony Goldwyn). Although Brodie and Garpare have a few fun, dueling banjos kill scenes, the pair never really develop the bond the script’s set-up promises, gutting the film of the fun action angle that wished it into existence.
One wonders if the tone of Plane was overhauled midway through the shoot, retconned (like Butler’s Scottish brogue) well into production and after half the thing had already been shot. It reeks of filmmaking-by-committee, where every idea is entertained yet with the edges smoothed off to make room. And that makes sense after watching Plane, a movie that wants to capture the nervy plane crash of Flight, the rogue soldier aspects of Olympus Has Fallen, and the odd couple buddy adventure vibes of the Romancing the Stone or Midnight Run types. A cheap carbon copy of all with none of the conviction or confidence of any, Plane, like the vessel Brodie pilots, ascends rapidly, falls even quicker, and is decidedly un-flightworthy thereafter.
“Obvious Child” is the debut novel of Warren Cantrell, a film and music critic based out of Seattle, Washington. Mr. Cantrell has covered the Sundance and Seattle International Film Festivals, and provides regular dispatches for Scene-Stealers and The Playlist. Warren holds a B.A. and M.A. in History, and his hobbies include bourbon drinking, novel writing, and full-contact kickboxing.
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