There’s something very special about Gerard Butler’s commitment to these slightly above average action movies and PLANE is no exception. Throwing back to the formulaic conventionality of 90’s action thrillers, PLANE is exactly the movie you expect it to be, and that’s a beautiful thing. This is a cheesy, gleefully ludicrous, completely illogical, and irresistibly enjoyable 90’s style guilty pleasure action flick, chock full of corny dialogue, one note villains, and hard hitting sequences of R rated action violence. Gerard Butler works so well in these kind of roles, and he does a genuinely fine job as this pilot who has to spring into action to protect his passengers after an emergency crash landing in hostile territory. It’s fun seeing Butler play a role in which his character is inexperienced in combat and must act outside his area of expertise to save the day. Mike Colter does a fine job at playing this mysterious prisoner onboard the plane, and his chemistry with Butler is fairly solid. Colter’s hard as nails character works as a perfect contrast to Butler’s more humane approach, as we really get to see Colter flex his muscles as he brutally takes out disposable bad guys. The movie benefits from not taking itself too seriously and avoids any unnecessary divisive political commentary to the extent that it feels like it was made in the 90’s, which is wonderful. There’s a crisis management team that have to make tough PR decisions, and they feel straight out of a mock-Die Hard movie. The PLANE sequences are tense, gripping, and had me on the edge of my seat. Savage jungle action violence, cookie cutter villains, one dimensional passengers, cliché dialogue, and a worthy leading duo make PLANE the perfect January guilty pleasure that will bring much amusement to any 90’s action movie aficionados. ✈️
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