Director: Jean-François Richet

Writer: Charles Cumming and J. P. Davis

Starring: Gerard Butler, Mike Colter, Yoson An, and Tony Goldwyn

Rating: ★★★½ 

Gerard Butler’s latest action thriller is Plane. A film that had a working title and at no point did anyone think to swap it for a real one. Despite that, it’s a really solid action thriller that’s simply pure escapism from start to finish.

The opening sequence is the best part of the film, by far. It wastes no time telling you that the flight is going to go badly (not that you needed telling that going to see a film called Plane starring Gerard Butler), and then once the foreshadowing is out of the way, the turbulence starts. As the plane starts to navigate through a storm, it’s incredibly tense and definitely not something you want to watch before a big flight. Then the plane actually lands on an old road in the middle of a jungle, and it’s a lot smoother than you’d expect, but it kind of has to for plot reasons. There isn’t a film if the characters die straight away, and it can’t really be called Plane if the plane isn’t there for the finale.  

The plan lands on a remote island and Captain Brodie Torrance (Gerard Butler) recruits a murderer who was being extradited on the plane, Louis Gaspare (Mike Colter) and they travel to a facility in the jungle to try and find a way of contacting help. While they’re gone the rest of the survivors are kidnaped by a militia group that live on the island, and Torrance decides to get them back. It’s a good thing that the captain was previously in the RAF and is a family man who wants to make sure his passengers sees their families, which is pretty much all the development his character gets, or the plot would be going nowhere fast.  

The entire plot is incredibly simple and straightforward throughout the film, after the plane goes down, it plays out pretty much exactly as you’d expect. It’s not trying to be anything special, just completely entertaining and thrilling all the way through. The action is well shot and exciting, especially close-up hand to hand fist fight that Torrance finds himself in early-on in the film. As  you’d expect there are a few silly moments and some cringe-inducing dialogue, especially during the finale, but by that point the film already has you hooked so they’re easy to overlook.

Plane is a well-made roller coaster. The opening twenty minutes are worth the ticket alone, and there’s a lot of very action throughout the film. It’s not brilliant, but it’s more than watchable. It’s just a shame that it has the dumbest title imaginable.

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