Plane

Brodie Torrance (Gerard Butler), is a recently widowed dad who looks forward to completing his nearly empty run from Singapore to Tokyo so he can take advantage of the time difference and meet up with his daughter in Hawaii in time to celebrate the new year. In the new film “Plane” things do not go as planned as the nearly empty the flight also hosts a prisoner transfer as a dangerous fugitive named Louis (Mike Colter), is brought onto the flight late. Forced by a corporate officer to fly through a storm they were told would be clear by the time they reached it to save time and fuel, the flight encounters severe issues and soon find themselves without avionics and forced to make an emergency landing on an island. Unable to send for help and unsure of their exact location, Brodie learns that they are on an outer island of the Philippines and that there is only insurrectionists and militia on the island and that the military or police are not options. While attempting to find a way to contact help, Brodie enlists Louis to help and soon finds that the passengers and crew have been taking hostage by a brutal local militia. Forced to improvise rescue and wait for help, the tense and violent situation quickly becomes a living nightmare as they fight to survive. The tension level of the film is great as the early segments in the plane did a great job of showing the routine of a pilot and also ramped up the tension. I can be a nervous passenger when a plane gets into bad weather and I found my palms getting sweaty and anxiety creeping in during the detailed sequences of the flight in peril. The action of the film was engaging as were the characters as they were easy to pull for despite not having much in the way of backstory or character development. The film has plenty of action as was engaging from start to finish which makes “Plane” a pleasant diversion and one fan of Butler will not want to miss. 4 stars out of 5

I was pleasantly surprised by Plane. Going into it, I had pretty low expectations as it seemed to be a cheap, action flick that was built for the dad's in our life. But there were some pretty good performances, set pieces, and brutal action that raised this movie from mediocrity. The plot is incredibly bare bones: a plane gets damaged in a storm and crash lands on a desolate island. We've seen this used in countless films and TV shows throughout the years but, the way this is handled is pretty incredible. We see it from the pilots perspective as he and the stewards are trying to navigate the situation to create the best course of action to survive. It was done in a very believable way, giving us a glimpse at crash landing procedure and how truly indestructible planes are. The entire 30-minutes sequence had me on the edge of my seat even though I knew it was coming from a mile away. The CGI in this section was quite rough though as the plane looked like something rendered in an Xbox 360 game. The movie does fall into some pretty classic tropes in movies like this. One being that almost all the "good" people are the classic white American men and woman, but the "bad" people (the island combatants and our main prisoner hero) are individuals of color. It is subtle, but something I noticed that slightly rubbed me the wrong way. Also the depiction of how the Philippines refused to assist in their own territory was laughable. But it opened the way for the good men of the American military were there to save the day and kill some island terrorists. It has some minor military propaganda that didn't totally take away from my experience, but worth a mention. The performances were all pretty good. Gerard Butler played his usual role, I enjoyed his charisma as a pilot but also the gruff and militaristic persona he pulled out from his previous service. Mike Colter was great as the ultimate badass of the movie, killing terrorists with whatever he could get his hands on. This was nothing against his performance, but I hated how they wrote his characters ending in the film. It did not do his character arch any justice and felt out of place. The rest of the cast was decent. Overall, this movie delivers exactly what it promised in a short concise runtime and I cannot ask any more than that. Score: 63% Verdict: Decent