A pilot is forced to team up with a fugitive criminal when he crash lands
his plane on a war-torn island.
Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Jean-François Richet
Starring: Gerard Butler, Mike Colter, Yoson An, Daniella Pineda, Paul Ben-Victor, Remi Adeleke, Joey Slotnick,
Evan Dane Taylor, Claro de los Reyes, Tony Goldwyn
Hollywood has gotten so lazy that no thought is even put into coming up
with a good title now. Plane isn't just as reductive a title as you could
imagine, it doesn't even make much sense. "Island" would have been more
appropriate, as only about 15 minutes of the movie takes place on a plane,
with the bulk of it playing out on an island.
Not just any island, but the sort of island Arnie or Michael Dudikoff
might rock up to in the climax of one of their 1980s action fests. It's an
island run by militant Filipinos who constantly snarl in that very
specific way Asian villains tend to in America movies. They all have
unkempt hair, unlike the film's good Asian, Dele (Yoson An), a Hong
Kong co-pilot with a sensible haircut. There are neutral Asians too, a few
passengers and crew members who are killed off because the producers
probably assume American audiences will identify less with them than the
various black, latin and white characters. Well I guess it's a change from
Hollywood pandering to China.
Plane doesn't just not give a toss about offending Asians,
it puts the boot into the English early on as the wonderfully named
Captain Brodie Torrance (Gerard Butler, of course) proudly declares
his Scottish nationality, scoffing at Dele's poor guess that he might come
from the country immediately below. The only English character in the
movie is the whiniest passenger. It makes sense that this is a movie
directed by a Frenchman (Jean-Francois Richet, who established his
action credentials with the French true crime epic Mesrine) and starring a Scot.
Brodie comes off as a collection of action movie hero tropes, most of
which fail to play any real part in the narrative. When we meet him first
he's arriving late for take-off, looking like he just came from an early
house, which makes us think Brodie is an alcoholic, but if that were the
case he'd probably be played by Liam Neeson. Butler just looks permanently
dishevelled, which makes him a poor choice for a pilot. If I were a
passenger and the pilot looked as wrecked as Butler I'd wait for the next
flight. But Brodie is a maverick, you see. He's ex-military of course,
having flown for the RAF, but the film seems to forget this when he's
called upon to fight later on and he acts like a civilian. Brodie has a
dead wife, but this detail serves absolutely no purpose.
When some penny-pinching airline bureaucrat ignores Brodie's warning
about a storm on his route from Singapore to the US, the titular craft is
forced to crashland on Bad Asian Island. Brodie swaps his crisp captain's
outfit for a pre-sweat-stained green t-shirt straight from the Zelensky
wardrobe and heads off looking for help. He's accompanied by Louis
Gaspare (Mike Colter), a wanted fugitive who was being extradited
back to the US. Louis is ex-military too, having served in the French
Foreign legion. I'm guessing he was originally written as a Frenchman, but
Colter is very American. Look, the movie is called fucking PLANE; don't
expect them to go to the trouble of changing a character's name.
We're set up for a classic buddy action movie, and in 1988 this probably
would have starred Roddy Piper and Keith David. But
Plane doesn't understand that this sort of dynamic requires
tension and conflict. Brodie and Louis hit it off from the start, denying
us the sort of fun bickering we expect when two tough guys on opposite
sides of the moral divide are forced to work in tandem. We should be
wondering if Louis is going to shoot Brodie in the back at some point to
make his getaway (this should be 3:10 to Yuma in the
jungle), but Louis is a total softie when it comes to Brodie.
For a movie with such a dumb title, Plane takes itself surprisingly
seriously. In the first few minutes a big-breasted Swedish model declares
that the seat number she's booked is "34D", but I'm not sure if it's
intentionally written as a gag, as there are no further puns in the
remainder of the movie. Films like this got released on a weekly basis in
the '90s, but they would always make sure to employ a script polisher to
add in a few jokes, something Plane is direly lacking. It
also unwisely avoids some of the cliches we expect and demand from this
sort of movie. A more in tune version of this film ends with Brodie
punching the penny-pinching bureaucrat who caused this, before walking off
into the sunset nursing his wounds.
For all my complaints, I had fun with Plane. Maybe that's because I had just sat through Women Talking, and really needed a dumb action movie to cleanse my palette of washed
out Oscar bait. There are a lot of missed opportunities here, but it
sticks to the action template just enough to satisfy viewers who like
movies where an action hero has to explain why he doesn't have an American
accent. My screening was packed full of men of a certain age, and they
seemed to be having an absolute blast.
You've got to give it Butler; he's made a career in Hollywood despite
resembling the sort of bloke that would install your broadband. When most
of today's action stars are pumping themselves full of 'roids and jumping
out of planes, Gerry is happy to sport a paunch and can't even bother
shaving when he's playing a commercial pilot. Few action stars have been
so relatable.
Plane is on UK/ROI VOD now.
