Gerard Butler’s career has been mostly playing the brutish types who don’t take shit off anyone. It seems ever since 300, he’s become the younger Scottish version of Liam Neeson. While he’s appeared in comedies, dramas and even as the doomed Erik in The Phantom of the Opera, he’s mainly an action star. Some have been good like the criminally underrated Copshop (in which he went mano e mano against his American counterpart Frank Grillo), while others have been okay.
Plane is one of those movies that is just okay. It’s the type of movie that evokes a 1980s/1990s Movies For Guys That Like Movies mentality. But after the credits are rolling, you’re scratching your head wondering what exactly did you just watch. Butler is a former Royal Air Force pilot turned commercial jetliner pilot whose name is Brodie Torrance. It’s not exactly a badass name like Mike Banning from his “…Has Fallen” movies but not near as plain as Bob Viddick in Copshop. And that’s the type of character Brodie is. He’s a nice guy until it’s time for him not to be nice.
It’s around New Year’s Eve and Brodie is flying for Trailblazer Airlines from Singapore to Honolulu via Tokyo. He’s hoping to spend the holiday with his daughter, Daniela (Halleigh Hekking.) I give the filmmakers credit for not giving Brodie a love interest and turning him in a dad because at 53, Butler shouldn’t be chasing after some 20-something or early 30-something in the South Pacific jungle. His co-pilot is Samuel Dele (Yoson An) and younger and they get along on the flight. This is another plus for me that the movie breaks through similar tired tropes in which the two would be butting heads over their age differences.
Brodie is told from one of his superiors to take a shortcut across the South China Sea. Unfortunately, this puts the plane right during the middle of an electrical thunderstorm causing the plane to be heavily damaged and all the electrical panels to be blown out. Flinding blind and having to navigate through the night during a storm with turbulence, they’re able to set it down on an island in the Phillipin. But one of the flight attendants is killed as well as an officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who is transporting Louis Gaspare (Mike Colter) on charges of homicide.
Here’s where the movie would turn into a pilot vs. prisoner passenger movie that we’ve seen before in movies. But since they’re on the island, Gaspare tells Brodie there’s no reason to go running into the jungle with his hands still in cuffs. But since Gaspare is a former member of the French Foreign Legion, his instincts might come in handy as they try to find help. Unfortunately, they’ve landed on an island where the local warlord Datu Junmar (Evan Dane Taylor) runs a kidnapping ring and since most of the passengers are from multiple countries, they can ransom them off for money.
I have to say I felt a little bit of a touch of racism here with the second half of the movie. Following the tense sequence where Brodie and Samuel are going through the storm, you’re almost expecting something else. Yet, the inclusion of Junmar and his one-dimensional guerilla army seem to play off some MAGA paranoia about non-white people. And even though the passengers are from different countries and backgrounds, it still feels a little racist, especially when the terrorists target an Asian couple to kill to set as an example they’re killers and they’re not putting up with anything.
There’s also the obigatory “war room” scene that’s common in all these movies where Tommy Goldwyn plays Scarsdale, a former Special Forces soldier, who talks to business executives and people in person and via satellite cameras as he leads the rescue efforts. And here’s where the movie seems to follow a different path as it introduces a few commandos who lead a rescue effort. Director Jean-Francois Richet and writers Charles Cumming and J.P. Davis seem to keep Brodie from becoming the obligatory “He’s the only man from the job” trope. And the character of Gaspare seems to offer a nice balance with Brodie’s character as the truer commando.
But still this is a Gerard Butler movie and he’s not going to play second-fiddle. There’s a very good filmed scene where he comes in contact with a guerrilla terrorist and of course he gets to kill the main bad guy in his own special way. Fillipinos have openly denounced the movie even though Jolo Island where the movie is supposed to be set did have a high-profile kidnapping and murder in September of 2015.
Word is that Colter is expected to return as Gaspare in a sequel titled Ship. The movie ends with a set-up kinda for the sequel. I feel a trend happening here with a third movie might be titled Train. Plane does have some good scenes to keep you just barely interested but it feels like there was a longer movie that was cut as much as it could to get to the more usual runtime of 107 minutes with credits. The passengers have about as much importance as the other people on the plane on the Lost TV show if you even remember them.
It sucks becuase of all that’s said and done, Butler isn’t that bad of an actor. Colter seems to stand out more which might make Ship a better movie if it ever gets made following the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. I’d advise the production team not to make the bad guys in that movie part of a certain country or ethnic race that can come off as racist.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 