PLANE - A Review

Gerard Butler and Mike Colter showing off their squatting skills in Plane

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

"No need to worry, folks, these planes are pretty much indestructible."

If you've ever seen a movie, you know what this means. But even before Captain Brodie Torrance (Gerard Butler) utters these reassuring/cursed words to a nervous passenger, he's already told his daughter he'll see her soon, done family photo show-and-tell with his copilot, and been denied permission to fly around a massive storm. You know that plane is going down.

The good news is the movie knows you know this. And everyone involved wisely chooses the path of least resistance. The plot unfurls as expected. We meet the crew and their 14 passengers, including a U.S. Marshal and his prisoner, Louis Gaspare, a convicted murderer you know you can trust immediately because he's played by Mike Colter (Netflix's Luke Cage). Then the plane flies into the storm, is struck by lightning and is forced to land on what turns out to be an island in the Jolo Cluster, an area of the Philippines populated by violent separatists! Nearly everyone aboard the plane is taken hostage and it's up to Torrance and Gaspare to Splinter Cell their way into enemy territory to get them back.

Meanwhile, the airline's response team, headed by Tony Golwyn (who deserves a role in Michael Bay's next project), decides the best course of action is to hire a team of mercenaries to save the day. Are they really needed? Not really. Butler and Colter are compelling and competent enough on their own, and this isn't the sort of film that needs to up the ante. But the movie might need more corpses later and having a helicopter touch down at some point might look cool. So welcome to the party, fellas!

Plane doesn't want or need much else. The spartan nature of the film is its strength. Director Jean-François Richet and writers J.P. Davis and Charles Cumming aren't interested in lectures or politics or backstories - they're interested in how many thugs Colter can take down with a sledgehammer and in how Butler is going to get back in the sky. Sure, there's a Captain Phillips-style breakdown here, a recognition of societal injustice there - but character development is sort of "shirt and shoes required" in a script like this. There are higher priorities: jeeps to drive, guns to shoot!

The only real surprise here is how much plane there actually is in the movie. The bare bones title, Plane, has been mocked since the trailer dropped, but that bad boy really does seem indestructible. The emergency landing almost feels tame (sure, two lives are lost, but only because they weren't following crew instruction), and the craft just keeps finding its way back into the spotlight. The title is justified.

I didn't expect my first review on here to be a defense of a middling Gerard Butler production, but it seems fitting. You've seen plenty like it before, but as long as you keep your expectations in check, you can have a good time. You could call it slight (the video game would be two levels; the novelization a haiku), but I prefer efficient. Plane is an Economy class thriller, a puddle jumper booked on a whim that takes you exactly where it said it would. And that's fine; it's January. What else were you gonna do? The mid-budget action flick exists almost exclusively on Netflix these days. Enjoy them on the big screen when you can.