“Plane” Review
Gerard Butler (Left) and Mike Colter star in “Plane” as two unlikely heroes forced to team up in order to rescue a bunch of hostages from a Filipino militia on a remote island.
First of all, “Plane” is a really dumb title. I know it’s a small thing to focus on but it really is stupid. It’s like the studio didn’t know what to call this film, then heard there was a film called “Airplane!” and decided to tweak it a bit with no idea that “Airplane!” is a satirical comedy classic that makes fun of overblown disaster films. While not an action classic by any means, I found the “Plane” had enough fun cliches to keep it entertaining, but not enough adrenaline to justify a feature length film.
Gerard Butler stars as Brodie Torrance, a pilot who’s supposed to be flying a commercial jet from Singapore to Tokyo. However, the plane is caught in a massive storm and struck by lightning, forcing Brodie to land the plane on a small island in the Philippines. Unfortunately, this island is controlled by a gang of separatists and warlords who take the passengers hostage. With search-and-rescue nowhere in sight, Brodie teams up with Louis Gaspare (Mike Colter), a passenger in handcuffs who was being extradited for murder, to free the hostages, kill the militias and get the hell off of this island.
Looking at this kind of plot, you’d assume that this is a dumb action film and you’d be correct. However, “Plane” is aware of this too and relishes the fun action cliches that we all love. There’s an action hero with an estranged daughter, a convict looking to redeem himself, a couple of passengers who are complete jackasses but Brodie can’t let them die, some fun uses of the word “fuck” and plenty of bloody and entertaining action sequences.
However, I wouldn’t exactly call this film mindless because there are some elements that I really enjoyed about the film. Gerard Butler is an excellent lead because he’s not only an action badass like in “300” and in the “Has Fallen” series but he also has enough emotion that you immediately sympathize with him. Not only does he want to get back home to his daughter, but he also feels a sense of responsibility towards his passengers and wants to get them home safely. There’s a pretty powerful scene where the passengers are taken hostage while Brodie and Louis are off in the treeline and can only watch. Brodie wants to go and help them but Louis has to hold him back as his passengers are hauled off. Through his eyes alone, you can tell that this is devastating to him and you want to see the two heroes kill some bad men.
As for Mike Colter, I think he’s a fun presence in the film as a guy you’re not sure whether you can trust. I’ve liked Colter ever since he played Luke Cage in a bunch of Netflix series set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and it’s good to see him just beating the hell out of people again.
The film’s action is very entertaining with some good use of camera placement to let you know where a good guy is, where a bad guy is and how they’re going to take them out. There’s not much quick cutting and a few sequences are handled with a lot of long, sweeping takes. As for the plane crash itself, it’s very white knuckled and handled with a lot of good suspenseful pacing. You certainly don’t want to see any of the passengers get hurt, even the ones who aren’t as likable, because you know how much it will hurt Brodie.
However, “Plane” does not stick the landing and things really begin to fall apart in the third act. The idea of the climax sounds really cool with Brodie and Louis trying to get the passengers off of the island while fighting off the militias alongside a group of mercenaries who were hired by the airline company. But the final fight is surprisingly underwhelming. I thought that things went too smoothly and there wasn’t a ton of suspense. I wanted this film to torture me, to make me think that these innocent people were all going to die.
The climax doesn’t even have much interaction with Brodie and Louis who have been built up as this great team of badasses the whole film. That’s like having no interaction with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton in the last 30 minutes of “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” or not having that final hug with Bruce Willis and Reginald VelJohnson in “Die Hard.”
“Plane” also cuts its own suspenseful tension by needlessly cutting back to the airline who are trying to find them and eventually hire mercenaries. I get what they were trying to do, an “Apollo 13” style scenario where the people in trouble are working with a lot of technicians to get them home, but the suits in the office really don’t contribute much and there isn’t much interaction between them and Brodie. The only one who’s enjoyable is Tony Goldwyn’s character who makes the call to get the mercenaries and spouts a lot of action cliches. He’s a lot of fun.
While I enjoyed many of “Plane’s” overblown cliches and I found my audience having a really good time with this film, I don’t think it comes together. Was I expecting the next “Top Gun: Maverick?” No but I was hoping for something that consistently entertained me the whole way through. I think that audiences are probably going to have a good time with this film though and there’s certainly worse things to spend your money on.
