Plane. It’s simply called Plane (now on VOD streaming services like Amazon Prime Video), and that winking sub-minimalist purposely idiotic title is far better in its blatant genericism than something like, I dunno, Tarmac of Terror or Plane Has Fallen or The Unlikely Heroism of the Pilot Brodie Torrance. And I think the title’s kitsch-pulp factor had a lot to do with it being a halfway-OK January, 2023 box office success ($33 million). The other factor is star Gerard Butler, since the pendulum of public opinion seems to have swung in his favor ever since the unpinnacle of his career, Geostorm, made us all very damp (and maybe a little bit angry). Considering Greenland, Copshop and now this endearingly ridiculous thing, our boy GB may be on a roll.
PLANE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: It all starts with a shithead bean counter in a suit. Doesn’t it always? He wants Capt. Brodie Torrance (Butler) to fight through a storm and save a few dimes on fuel instead of taking a longer route from Singapore to Tokyo. It’s New Year’s Eve, there’s only 14 passengers on board, and ol’ Brodes just wants to get the job done so he can zip to Hawaii for vacay with his daughter. The civilians board – there’s the rude bald white guy, the selfie-obsessed teen girls, another rude bald white guy, etc. – and then two “special guests” hop on, a marshal and his fugitive prisoner, Louis Gaspare (Mike Colter, of Luke Cage fame). Now let’s see, red blobs on the weather radar, homicide suspect, an itch to get this over with – none of it bodes well.
But sally forth Brodie must. He and co-pilot Dele (Yoson An) get off the ground and at cruising altitude before kapow, the plane is struck by lightning. The turbulence kills a flight attendant and, of course, the marshal guarding the scary guy. Brodie bonks his head and he’s bleeding. Comms are down. They’re flying this thing manually. It’s dark. They have about 10 minutes before the thingamajig goes kaflooey, which would send them plummeting to the earth. Brodie calls in the head flight attendant Bonnie (Daniella Pineda) and says to her the thing we absolutely thought he’d have to say: “I never thought I’d have to say this: Prepare to ditch.”
“Prepare to ditch.” Now that sounds like a movie title. Brodie kisses a photo of his daughter and late wife (insert twinge of sadness here) and eyes the water. Can he Sully his way out of this pinch? Then he eyes an island in the water. THEN he eyes a road on the island in the water, and sets this hunk of junk down just in the nick. Safe! But only momentarily. They’re not sure where they are and they have no means of communicating with the execs and whoever sitting in a dark board room, most crucially the owner of the airline (Paul Ben-Victor) and the black-ops chief (Tony Goldwyn) called in to help.
Black-ops chief? Damn straight – the island has no government and is ruled by separatist militias who apparently fund their operations by taking hostages and demanding ransom and sometimes machete-ing a hostage’s head off to show they mean business. Not nice! And you need some not-nice mercenaries to deal with them! But little do the bad guys know, ol’ Cap’n Brodie isn’t just a highly competent pilot who’s steely under pressure, but he can leverage a mofo into a nasty chokehold, and also take a punch, which is a good thing, because he’s about to take more than a few. It also helps that Fugitive Prisoner Louis is a badass former French Foreign Legion guy who knows what to do with an M-16. As a wise man once said, this is a dilly of a pickle. But that wise man didn’t have post-Geostorm Gerard Butler on his side.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Die Hard 2, one of the xenophobic Rambos and any of the last dozen or so Liam Neeson vehicles.
Performance Worth Watching: Our man Gerry Buts sands down some of his more abrasive qualities to give us the most earnest depiction of a heroic commercial airline pilot since Tom Hanks played Sully.
Memorable Dialogue: When Brodie takes out his first bad guy, Louis gives him a prescription for PTSD: “That’s it then. Bury it all. Deal with shit later.”
Sex and Skin: None. TBGEATTWCTF: Too Busy Givin’ ’er All The Thrust We Can To F—.
Our Take: Best plane movie since Maverick! Notably, Plane exists in a post-ironic world where it doesn’t lean into its silliness. There are no snakes on this flight. It’s 100 percent sincere in tone and its commitment to entertaining us, and draws closer comparison to an old Sly or Arnold or Chuck Norris movie than any self-aware quasi-comedic neo-dreck. Jean-Francois Richet (the Attack on Precinct 13 remake) is a competent, occasionally dynamic director who knows how to choreograph hand-to-hand conflicts, firefights and hair-raising airborne shenanigans for maximum intensity. He’s not aiming for snarky laughs – he’s aiming for old-fashioned thrills. He also paints an offensively reductive portrait of South Asians as terrorist villains, just like in the old days.
And it works. Nobody’s going to declare Plane a classic, but between Richet’s visual acumen and Butler doing admirable diligence to a character who’s in over his head but capable of pulling through in the clutch, it’s an enjoyable, fast-paced and surprisingly engaging diversion. Of course Butler’s going to give a they’re-my-passengers-and-I-gotta-save-’em-GODDAMMIT speech. Of course he’s going to take many, many lumps and it’s-only-a-flesh-wound his way through this plot. Of course he’s going to clench his teeth and sweat from his eyeballs as he grips the yoke and yells WE NEED ALL THE THRUST WE CAN GET and WE’RE LOSING ALTITUDE. We just didn’t think we’d give as much of a damn as we do.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Plane does what’s on the box. It achieves takeoff and lands on the runway satisfactorily and satisfyingly, and aren’t you glad I didn’t plane-pun my way through this review?
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
