A pilot finds himself caught in a war zone after he’s forced to land his commercial aircraft during a terrible storm.
Gerard Butler’s understated sexiness is enough to carry this entire movie on its own. However, there is still one hundred and seven minutes of chaos that must be accounted for, so I must wax poetically about Mr. Butler’s precarious situation on New Year’s Eve in unfamiliar territory, both physically and emotionally. As the film opens, Captain Brodie Torrance (Butler) can be seen rushing through the airport and speaking with his daughter on the phone. In the short exchange, he and Brie (Lilly Krug) are expressing how much they are looking forward to seeing each other to share New Year’s eve after their relationship has taken a hit due to them being in different locations after his wife’s death three years earlier and Brie’s decision to go far away to school to help with healing. No sooner than they hang up, Captain Torrance’s life starts to unravel as he prepares to pilot an aircraft in the face of unpredictable weather and the last-minute addition of prisoner-on-the-lam Louis Gaspare (Mike Colter), his escort being added to the passenger list regardless of the Captain’s dismay.
As Torrance takes his seat in the cockpit, he is met by his new co-pilot, Dele (Yoson An), who appears to be a bit inexperienced and a little unnerved about impending weather over the South China Seas and partnering with a pilot who doesn’t seem at all bothered by his own lackadaisical arrival. When Torrance tries to negotiate a different flight pattern so he can meet the commitment he made to meet his daughter by midnight, he is immediately shut down by his superior and advised that he doesn’t have enough fuel to do anything other than what was directed. Shortly after the plane reaches its desired altitude, the flight attendants begin to service the flight, and the quirkiness of all fourteen passengers becomes par for the course that is about to be set for the next few hours.
As the first of many events starts to take place, such as a lightning strike and a loss of power, Torrance engages his team and advises them to prepare the passengers for a rocky ride and -then, later, an uncontrolled crash landing. Amid the chaos, the passengers become unglued, and shortly after that, a flight attendant and the prisoner’s escort become collateral damage. As Torrance and Dele navigate through their fears to become dependent upon each other for survival, they realize that getting the plane on the ground is the least of their worries. Once they land in a territory that criminals occupy with no governing authority, they attempt to engage the group while coming to terms with what to do with the prisoner. When Torrance realizes he must leave the group to seek assistance, he decides to take the prisoner with him for the group’s safety. While it is almost predictable that this was the best decision Torrance could have ever made, no amount of guesswork could lead to the series of events that followed as the live-action thriller unfolded. As the film progressed, there were many twists and turns that kept the adrenaline pumping; however, the team that came together to plan the rescue was just as quirky and problematic as the group on the plane, and once the tactical officer, Scarsdale (Tony Goldwyn) took over the reins, the film took on a new direction of humor, humility, and rhetoric that kept the audience well-entertained and cross-focused on the outcomes of both groups.
While there were many peaks and valleys in the film, in the end, the underlying theme of redemption was stable throughout. Director Jean-Francois Richet does a top-notch job of putting together an excellent cast of personalities and characters that brought out the best when times necessitated it and the worst when there was no other direction. Butler and Colter’s incompatibility and compatibility seem effortless despite their positions. The entire cast was relatable to what we, as humans, come to expect from diverse people with diverse perspectives in dire circumstances. For its entertainment value, “Plane” is well worth the price of admission and classically relevant despite its minor flaw of being too much like the plane horror stories that we keep hoping will get better one film or flight at a time. “Plane” is so much more than a jolting ride to redemption…it is an acceptance of human frailty and an exercise in quantifiable efficiency and endurance!
In Theaters Friday, January 13th
