Review: Plane

SYNOPSIS:
In the white-knuckle action movie PLANE, pilot Brodie Torrance (Gerard Butler) saves his passengers from a lightning strike by making a risky landing on a war-torn island – only to find that surviving the landing was just the beginning. When most of the passengers are taken hostage by dangerous rebels, the only person Torrance can count on for help is Louis Gaspare (Mike Colter), an accused murderer who was being transported by the FBI. In order to rescue the passengers, Torrance will need Gaspare’s help, and will learn there’s more to Gaspare than meets the eye.

What We Thought:

Is Plane something we haven’t seen before? No, of course not. Is it a good enough watch for the dead zone that is January movie releases? Yes. Yes it is.

I’m a sucker for a Gerard Butler action flick. Add in Mike Colter who played Luke Cage and you have my attention. Unfortunately it takes too long to get to the action. In a movie like this, I genuinely don’t care about backstories. I don’t need any backstory, just get me to the action. This talks about Butler’s daughter. It talks about the co-pilot and his family. Colter’s character is explained a bit. It’s all unnecessary.

Again, in a film like this just crash the plane and go from there. We know who the leads are and that the crash isn’t the only thing they’ll need to survive. The film is too long and it takes too long to get to where it needs to go. The plane crash was very cool, but it took far too long to get to that point. The plane isn’t even full so why did it take so long to get to the crash that you know is happening? Crash the plane, tell us about the rebels and start shooting people. It’s a non-comic book action movie, just give us action.

Another issue I have is both Butler and Colter’s characters are alleged veterans yet neither one of them carries their weapons like a trained veteran would. It’s even more noticeable when Colter is fighting next to the hired rescue team towards the end of the film. The team that is hired are paid mercenaries and the actors portraying them must have some real life training and it shows. Their gun positioning, their reloading and body movements are a lot more realistic than Colter’s and Butler’s. Why make Colter a veteran if you aren’t going to give him training for the movie? The final shootout is pretty badass, but you can clearly tell who has had proper gun training and who had Hollywood gun training.

Overall Plane isn’t as action packed as I was hoping, but it helps fill the void at the box office. It won’t open all that big, but it will eventually find an audience on streaming/home video. This would 100% get lost in the Summer Blockbuster Season, but without much competition it could open around third place behind Avatar 2 and M3GAN. Butler and Colter are fine, but a film like this they can both do in the sleep. It should have more action, but the third act does save it.