Plane stars Gerard Butler in a role that seems tailor-made for his action persona. Normally I would consider that a bad thing seeing as he’s done that to death, but in this instance, he’s found a script that plays to his strengths.
Butler stars as Brodie Torrance, a pilot flying in the middle of a storm who lands safely with his flight crew and passengers in check. One of the passengers is a convicted felon (Mike Colter).
They land on an island in the Philippines. While trying to fix the plane, they soon discover it’s occupied by a group of militias who soon take them all hostage.
Torrance and the convict escape, and once they do, they try to find supplies to help fix the plane and take out the hostiles one at a time. You know, that old tried-and-true cliche.
The movie doesn’t offer a whole lot of suspense, but it does feature some tense moments, as when the copilot (Yoson An) stands up to the hostiles and the tension in this scene is palpable.
You won’t see a lot in Plane that you couldn’t see in Die Hard or any other action movie where one man takes on a group of terrorists before inevitably coming face-to-face with the leader.
This is pretty much Die Hard on an island, but Butler has both the brains and the brawns that this script requires. Colter also does a decent job at being the convict due to some scenes of ambiguity of whether or not he’s with Butler or if he plans to kill him.
Plane is a movie that could’ve been a straightforwardly forgettable action movie, but it’s a lot of fun in the moment—no more, no less.
Grade: B
(Rated R for violence and language.)
