Plane
Gerard Butler's January action programmer surprises with a strong takeoff to the movie year.
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You likely already know if a January Gerard Butler genre programmer is your bag or not. If you’ve ever seen anyone or anything fall alongside Mr. Butler or spent time in a “Den of Thieves,” then “Plane” (in theaters beginning Friday, Jan. 13) just might be your particular brand of airplane bottle-sized vodka.
Butler stars as the hilariously-named Brodie Torrance, a pilot for the fictional Trailblazer Airlines. On a fateful flight from Manila to Tokyo, Brodie Torrance (though it breaks Associated Press style, we’re gonna continue basking in this ridiculous moniker in full) and his co-pilot Dele (Yoson An) are forced to fly through a storm at the behest of a corporate middleman (Jeffrey Holsman) who wants to save time and money … especially since they only have a measly 14 passengers. Lo and behold the plane is struck by lightning, loses power and Brodie Torrance is forced to perform an emergency landing on one of the Jolo Islands.
As luck would have it, this Philippine isle is populated by a heavily-armed, anti-government militia led by Junmar (Evan Dane Taylor). Junmar and his men get dollar signs in their eyes at the sight of the passengers and crew and decide to kidnap them for a king’s ransom. It’s now up to Brodie Torrance and prison transportee Louis Gaspare (Mike Colter of “Luke Cage” fame) to mount a rescue mission. Aiding Brodie Torrance and Gaspare in their efforts from Trailblazer’s headquarters are the airline’s owner Hampton (Paul Ben-Victor) and former Special Forces officer Scarsdale (Tony Goldwyn). They employ Shellback (Remi Adeleke) and his team of mercenaries to assist with extraction.
As directed by Jean-François Richet (helmer of 2005’s “Assault on Precinct 13” remake and modern Mel Gibson movie “Blood Father”) and scripted by Charles Cumming and J.P. Davis (last year’s “The Contractor”), “Plane” (despite its generic title) is far from plain. These creatives take their time to establish their characters before unleashing the requisite action inherent to an action-thriller such as this. Richet’s track record has shown him to have equally adept hands with both action and character – “Plane” further reinforces this idea … one hand washes the other.
Despite concluding like a “Call of Duty” campaign mission and still very much being the Butler bang-bang barrage it was advertised as, “Plane” also calls to mind Tom Hanks-fronted prestige projects such as “Captain Phillips” and “Sully.” Butler has a moment at the end of the picture where he’s allowed to impressively flex heretofore unseen performative muscles that eerily echo Hanks’ work from the coda of Paul Greengrass’ film. Butler is ably supported by the cool-as-a-cucumber Colter, who gives off vibes of “Dirty Dozen” members Charles Bronson and Jim Brown in equal measure. Goldwyn also appears to be having fun playing against type as the smart-mouthed Scarsdale.
Between last week’s “M3GAN” and this week’s “Plane,” it’s been a surprisingly strong start to the year cinematically. Let’s hope the landing is as smooth as the takeoff.