PLANE (2023)

PLANE (2023)

Tagline: The crash was only the beginning.

(Thriller, Action, You’ve Been...Thunderstruck) [R]

In this one, Brodie Torrance and his crew are flying 14 passengers over a dangerous storm after the airline's flight planner told them they could save fuel by taking the route. The plane is stuck by lighting forcing Brodie and his co-pilot Dele to land the aircraft on an island loaded with murderous separatists that want to exploit and then kill them. Brodie can handle himself, but he will need the help of Louis Gaspare who was being held as a murder suspect by the FBI. 

One thing I loved about this thing is that they give us all the backstory we need to care about the characters enough to want them to live. Except for Sinclair, Sinclair can bite a rock, he sucks. So we do get enough depth to not turn this into a full-blown drama, but not so much that it drowns out the bare-bones action flick I think people going to this movie wanted. When I saw the previews, I wanted to see Gerard Butler (GREENLAND) handling business and just chewing up bad guys with rocks, sticks, knives, or guns, whatever it takes, with Mike Colter (LUKE CAGE). That is what’s happening here. 

I just re-watched JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION about a week ago and noticed that we’d be getting Daniella Pineda in this. She plays Bonnie and does a solid job. In spite of her being in JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION, I know her best from COWBOY BEBOP which was sadly canceled after 1 season. Most of her lines are in the first half of the movie if you are a fan of hers, going to see this thing for her. We do get a ton of Gerard Butler and this is another solid outing for him. I do consider him a hit-and-miss actor, but the movies he does that aren’t that great, typically don’t end up mediocre because he sucks, he just sometimes picks sucky movies. This one is not one of them. He is very solid as Brodie Torrance. All I can say is if a pilot tells you to keep your self-belt on, you do that. This is a decent movie for Mike Colter, but I kind of think they did his character Louis dirty to an extent. I am not going to go into why, but yeah. I would have liked to see something go differently for Louis. I will say, that the storyline as it was, ended up a bit more realistic, but you know by now, I am not a fan of “realistic” in movies. I also liked Remi Adeleke (TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT) in this as Shellback. He has only been in 6 movies, but he has a pretty solid screen presence. I would like to see him in more film projects in the future. 

The score is effective as is the soundtrack, but neither is going to be remembered as iconic or anything. I did like the cinematography but it also wasn’t mind-blowing. What is very solid is the acting and the pacing. This flick is an hour and 47 minutes, but it almost feels like it’s just an hour, because there is no messing around. Once it gets moving, it keeps moving. There are no wasted scenes. 

My favorite thing about this movie is that it’s a straight up balls to the wall action flick. It’s not trying to teach us something. It’s not trying to virtue signal or pc the crap out of us. It’s just getting it done and everyone is just trying to survive. 

If I have any complaints it’s that we didn’t get any introductions to the actual passengers. They do give us some personalities and man, Sinclair needs some counseling, but outside of that, we really don’t know anyone else that well and I think it would have made us care more for the actual passengers than just the crew. Then again, to even do that, you would have needed to add at least 5 to 7 more minutes and I already think the run time was near perfect. So something would have had to give. 

Overall this is a fun well-crafted film with no frills and no real surprises. I am fine with that. This one gets a 5 out of 7. 

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