It was only a matter of time before they made an "airplane in danger" film featuring one of the most famous aircraft in the world, Air Force One. The movie, directed by Wolfgang Petersen, is almost saved by the performances of the films two leads, Harrison Ford as The President Of The United States and Gary Oldman as his nemesis, a Russian terrorist.
The movie is laden with every cliche, from every airplane, terrorist, political crisis movie you can find. In addition it has multiple endings with the plane flying on from one crisis to the next. Yet because of the work of it's two stars the movie is extremely watchable. It is completely predictable, but at the same time it engages the viewer into rooting for this gun toting President and the good old red, white and blue. I think it's because we have gotten so tired of seeing our politicians refuse to take any real action on anything, that we rally around President James Marshall as he takes on a plane load of terrorists.
Glenn Close as the Vice-President and Dean Stockwell as the Secretary Of defense give strong performances on the ground, but everyone else in the white house is reduced to reading standard crisis dialogue. One character even compares flying a plane to riding a bicycle, a line we heard in Zero Hour and Airplane. In addition the movie asks the audience to suspend disbelief a few times and too overlook some obvious CGI effects.
As big budget summer entertainment the films a hit, but it lacks the suspense of a really good thriller.
At the Movie House rating ** 1/2 stars
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