‘Plane Review: A HighFlying Action Movie As Sturdy As Its Star, Gerard Butler
Since the 1980s, action films have been very basic in concept, execution, and title. So when you hear Gerard Butler's new movie Airplane, you'd be forgiven for thinking you could turn the entire movie upside down in the blink of an eye. Gerard Butler on a plane (verified). It is likely to be a controller (controller). There might be a criminal on board (check). The movie will be a low-flying Air Force One B-Class in which the gag-pushing butler saves the day, as did the executive feat starring Harrison Ford.
Not right.
Butler, in broken father form with a gold nugget on his shoulder, actually plays a commercial airline pilot, Captain Brody Torrance, who in the opening scenes climbs aboard a plane he pilots. New Years Eve flight from Singapore (where he is) to Tokyo. Indeed, there is a culprit on board: a handcuffed convicted murderer, Louis Gaspard (Mike Coulter), is turned in and put on the passenger list at the last minute. We are waiting for the fireworks and they are coming, but only in the form of bad weather. The CEO of Trailblazer Airlines decided to divert the plane into a terrible storm because it would save on fuel costs by not flying.
Brody has to fly over the top of the storm, but this storm clearly has no top. It blows the plane like a tin can and then the lightning destroys the plane's electrical system. These sights are very scary, especially if you are afraid of flying. As the plane begins to lose altitude, it becomes clear that Brody will have no choice but to land, even though there is nothing but the ocean below him. .
But you don't know that it is embedded in the ground. An island in the jungle with a winding path in the middle. How practical! Donning a Sally Sullenberger hat, Brody is able to make an emergency landing, use the highway as a makeshift runway, and launch a short-circuit plane with 14 passengers on what turns out to be Jolo, a remote Philippine island controlled by Rain Man. . . dissident separatist militias.
We were thinking of seeing a plane. But now we turn to the island, or the Tropical Hostages, or Gerard Butler sneering and kicking the ass of the apathetic partisans. Airplane is an airplane thriller that turns into a hijacking escape thriller that turns into a buddy challenge thriller that turns into an air traffic control thriller that turns into an airplane thriller again. But the fact that it's all at once plays in his favor. Jean-François Richet, director of French crime drama (Mesrine) turned alien filmmaker (The Bloody Father), straddles genres to make sure none stick. The movie has a nice utilitarian quality based on familiar demeanor that seems to come from the world before Sly and Arnold. On the contrary, he feels less trapped on this remote island than in the "pain triangle".
Butler is now 53 and his Scotch is ageing like a fine wine, or at least a good ale. He has a warm, furry side, which shows in Brody's phone conversations with his college girlfriend Daniela (Haley Hecking), whom he was supposed to meet after the robbery. He reconnects with her in one of the film's best scenes, which takes place in an abandoned call booth in the middle of the woods, where Brody manages to reconnect the phone line in just a few minutes so he can make the call. .. . On Trailblazer Airlines. The corporate wrecking crew, led by a former SWAT officer played by Tony Goldwyn (who looks like Ryan Seacrest's muscular brother), is out there, trying to find the missing plane. But Brody, in a frustrating comic scene, meets a bored 21st-century corporate operator with whom he refuses to cooperate. (She thinks he's a joker). So she has to call Danielle.
Even when the Pathfinder boys find out where the plane is, they can't rush to help. The Philippine government will not cooperate; Only mercenaries will enter. That means Brody has to battle the rebels on his own, though he does substitute a partner: Louie, a handcuffed assassin played by the charismatic Mike Colter, who turns this thug into a villain yet keeps you guessing. The rest of the passengers cower and argue or, in the case of arrogant businessman Sinclair (Joey Slotnick), shout orders to the rebels, led by an angry Che Guevara-like Commander Daily (Yosun Ahn), overpower him. to low servility. They need a ransom to fund their war, a plan Brody undermines with punches, machine guns, surgical espionage and extreme driving skills. The plane is fantastic, but the picture is shameful in its implausibility, which he carried, at times hung over, with Gerard Butler's somber determination.
