One Stinko of a movie featuring a shopworn plot and, to be kind, acting of less than Oscar caliber. But to me the single worst flaw was the total misrepresentation of a jet aircraft, and especially a 747. Some of the major blunders:
1. No Flight Engineer (or even a flight engineer station. 2. Mis-identifying the F-16 interceptors as F-15's (no resmblance whatsoever). 3. Loading passengers into an "aft baggage compartment" supposedly accesible from the cabin - Even if such a compartment existed, placing that much weight that far aft would make the aircraft unflyable. 4. Hollow point bullets that "won't damage the aircraft". 5. The entire landing procedure was so bad I wanted to puke. 6. An SR-71 (of all planes) with a pressure seal hatch 7. Opening a cabin door outward - into the wind - in flight!!
Ah nuts, it was just a truly lousy movie. Gotta make the list of bottom 10 of the year.
Plot summary
When a Marine Colonel orders his men to massacre a village they were sent to rescue some hostages but when they found them dead they decide to get some payback. Upon returning to the States the Colonel would be court-martialed and made a plea agreement wherein all the blame is on him and his men would be discharged and receive any benefits they're entitled. But the General presiding over his trial chooses not to agree to the agreement and throws the book at the Colonel and has his men dishonorably discharged thus eliminating all their benefits. When the Colonel is being transported, his men bust him out. Sometime later the General has been appointed to an important government position he boards a plane to go on his latest assignment. The Colonel and his men are also on the plane. They takeover the plane. When the tower learns of the deviation a government man arrives and upon learning of the Colonel's presence on the plane sends a team to get on board the plane while in flight. When they get on, the Colonel and his men find them and kill them except for the leader who pretended to be dead. Now he alone has to stop the Colonel and his only help is the flight attendant.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
Director
Top cast
Tech specs
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They should have hired a technical advisor.
Almost perfect.
I really like this film. Way more than Executive Decision. I believe you can do more with less. I think this is well done overall. I have a few problems. Alex Cord plays such a hard nosed general I am surprised he didn't break from being so stiff. I am curious if a JAG general can actually wipe out an agreed upon agreement. Also, how did they gun/parts through the X-Ray machine? I wish the commandos got on the plane quicker.
Weak Airplane slog
During a court martial, Col. John Sykes (O'Reilly),and his cohorts as well, are dishonorably discharged. The Chief Judge Adjutant, General Harlan Prescott (Cord),throws out their initial plea agreement, probably so he could bellow at them and then give them the maximum punishment. Later on, Prescott boards a plane with his assistant that looks exactly like Eugene Levy. Sykes and his disgraced army men board the same plane and take it hostage. Now with complete chaos on board, only one man can come in and save the day: Matt Marshall (Ice-T). But because he gets wounded in a firefight, he isn't as active in day-saving as he should be. That's when spunky flight attendant Kelly Young (Oja) gets into the act. One minute she's serving drinks to obnoxious passengers like Morton (Hytner),the next minute she's killing baddies and flying the plane. Will everyone on board make a safe landing...or will they be overcome with their AIR RAGE?
First came Executive Decision (1996). Then came Strategic Command (1997). Now comes Air Rage, an overlong, unnecessary addition to the plane-hostage movie canon. Over its 100- minute running time, you won't see anything you haven't seen before. Another plane is taken hostage, another strike force is brought in to save the day, another terrorist wants yet another CD-ROM filled with information, and it all seems very, very familiar. The only actual air rage is felt by the viewer as he takes in this repetitive muck.
After we were watching the movie for a while, we noticed Ice-T was nowhere in sight, so we went on Ice-T watch. Despite appearing very prominently on the box art, Ice doesn't show up until exactly 40 minutes in. And even after that, he's not a forceful hero because he's injured and in pain for a good amount of time. If there's a main hero here, it's Kelly the Stewardess. We were happy to see Oja not be put in an ineffectual stewardess role and instead get in on the action. But she's not on the box art. Could it be sexism? Maybe because he was fresh off of fellow plane flick Stealth Fighter (1999),where he was the baddie, perhaps Ice-T was sick of planes and he doesn't care as much this time around. And is it just us, or is it racist that Ice-T of all people leads a Black Ops team where the code name is Blackbird?
Pretty much the only bright spot in this air disaster of a movie is the presence of Alex Cord as the General. His presence is great and his voice is fantastic. He should have narrated the movie. That might have fixed things. As seems to be standard for Fred Olen Ray, while the movie itself is substandard, he gets a lot of great character actors to shoulder the weight of the project. This seems to mitigate the cruddiness of the proceedings somewhat. Jack McGee, Glynn Turman, and Gil Gerard are all welcome faces and they do their best. Even Steve Hytner, immediately recognizable as Banya from TV's Seinfeld, is here and he plays an unlikeable jerk very well. But it's just not enough to overcome the lack of originality here and the boredom that ensues from it.
Pro tip: If you want to watch something like this, but want to see a movie that's actually good and very entertaining, watch Passenger 57 instead.