Director: Jean-François Richet
Screenplay: Charles Cumming, J. P. Davis
Starring: Gerard Butler, Mike Colter, Tony Goldwyn, Yoson An, Daniella Pineda, Evan Dane Taylor
Country: USA
Running Time: 107 min
Year: 2023
BBFC Certificate: 15
When a small commercial airplane makes a forced landing on an unsafe island in the Pacific ocean, former RAF pilot Brodie Torrance (Gerard Butler) must team up with convicted killer Louis Gaspare (Mike Colter) to save not just the rest of the passengers, but the whole damn day.
If that sounds like the cheesiest, most 1990s action premise you can imagine, then welcome to the wonderful world of Plane! Unencumbered with superfluous frivolities like emotional arcs or supporting characters with depth (or names), Plane is delightfully straightforward in its aim to thrill you with a good guys versus bad guys plot, explosion and gore-filled action and numerous scenes of angry people shouting in rooms.
Once you’re past the hastily delivered exposition and sufficient back story (Torrance is a widower with an estranged daughter who he is trying to reach to celebrate New Year’s Eve, Gaspare is being extradited to Canada to face trial after fleeing to join the French Foreign Legion, there’s an incoming storm the airline insist they must fly through to save money) it’s seat belts fastened and tray tables raised as the plot gets underway. The action is excellent, with a particularly gruelling forced landing sequence that put this reviewer’s wife off wanting to fly ever again, and an intimate one-on-one long take fight sequence. In fact, a lot of the action hits far harder than expected, particularly when heavier weaponry gets involved later on. One character doesn’t hang around when there’s a knife that can be inserted into a throat, or a sledgehammer into a face, so if you’re a little squeamish then look away when those implements are brandished!
Butler plays the pilot with a charming ease, but don’t write him off as just another Mike Banning with shoulder stripes, as he delivers some surprisingly emotional sequences and seems to have true compassion and concern for his crew and passengers. Colter, perhaps best known as Luke Cage from the Marvel TV series, is also good with a few stand-out moments, but this is very much the Gerard Butler show. The rest of the cast gets very little to do within their stereotypical roles of asshole passenger, social media influencer, concerned crew member or gun-toting rebel, but back in the office Tony Goldwyn does his best to steal every moment he’s on screen as the specialist brought in to resolve the situation.
Recent years have shown an uptick in global action movies with an unnamed, unaffiliated villainous nation, presumably so as to not affect the box office takings in any country. Such is the case here, but it does not serve as a distracting detriment to the quality of the plot. In fact, all the story beats make a certain kind of sense with no ludicrous decisions threatening to derail the whole experience. “The story makes sense” may sound like damning with the faintest of praises, but when it comes to modern action films with back-of-a-napkin premises, you’d be surprised! Plane‘s central hook of the heroic pilot having to team up with an apprehended killer is less relevant to the overall plot than expected, merely adding a little tension and opportunity for soul-bearing that might have felt missing otherwise.
This is by no means a revolutionary action classic, but not every film needs to be. Sometimes you just want a solid movie with a satisfying story, good action and a script that is really hammering home that this takes place around the New Year. Whether this will be akin to Die Hard cornering the market on genre Christmas films is yet to be seen, but in the meantime Plane is definitely worth boarding. Frustratingly the venue it would be best suited for being watched is probably on a plane, but I can pretty much guarantee this will never be shown as an in-flight movie any time soon!
Plane is available now on premium digital from Lionsgate. Check out the trailer here.