The Cold War is over and President of the United States James Marshall attends a state dinner in Moscow. Amidst the now-warm relationship between Russia and the U.S., he warns that the U.S. will not negotiate with terrorists. He and his family then travel to Air Force One, to return home. But once in the air, the plane is hijacked by Kazakh/Soviet loyalists (with the help of a mole in the Secret Service). Led by Egor Korshunov, the loyalists demand that Kazakh General Radek be let out of prison—they threaten to kill an onboard hostage every 30 minutes until he is, and they’re brutally serious. Vice President Kathryn Bennett begins managing the crisis amidst the primary unknown: Where is President Marshall? Ends up, Marshall is still on the plane and begins kicking some terrorist-ass. With his military experience and allies on the ground and in the air, Marshall orchestrates the evacuation of most on the plane, ousts the terrorists, deals with the mole, and must trust in a daring mid-flight rescue. In total, it’s a silly, suspenseful 124 minutes.
There was a lot about the film I wasn’t sold on, but just as much to love. Clearly many of my friends love this film (I got a few angry messages on IG about this, LOL), but I really struggled to suspend my disbelief on this one. The production design, from the way everyone moved on the plane, to the aircraft models, to the primitive CGI finale sequence, just doesn’t hold up. And the character arcs were uninspiring. A President who won’t negotiate with terrorists—until he does—and when that goes wrong, he punches his way out of it. And Glenn Close’s Vice President arc didn’t make sense to me: A nervous leader who slowly finds her bearings managing a crisis, but who still can’t make the right call during a 25th Amendment crisis. Her arc is shot to be inspirational, but to me, it was all wrong. Maybe I’m comparing this “Die Hard” picture to “The West Wing” too much.
Still, as I said, there’s a lot to like. First of all, the film totally moves. I was curious how much plot they could milk out of the all-airplane setting but was impressed with all the ways that drama was built. I stayed interested, the whole flick. I think that keeping the president’s betrayer unknown (to him) until the end was a genius choice and really added to the tension (although, I wish I knew why he defected). Gary Oldman does that Gary Oldman thing where he’s super over the top but weirdly totally sells it. Finally, Jerry Goldsmith’s main themes were top notch. Apparently composed in 12 days, the music is like a test flight of what he did for Soarin’ (in fact, the theme is in the Soarin’ queue). So yeah—a fun, silly action film without a proper character arc.