Air Force One (1997)

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Air Force One (1997)

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The President of the USA goes to Moscow and gives a stirring speech outlining the USA's new "Zero-tolerance" policy with respect to terrorism. On the flight home, terrorists take over Air Force One (the President's official plane) and take the passengers (including his wife and daughter) hostage. The terrorists plan to execute one hostage every half-hour unless/until their demands are met. However, the President is a former Medal of Honor winner, so the terrorists may be in for a surprise…

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Air Force One (1997)

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Fresh off the success of a joint U.S.-Russian mission to capture a rogue world leader named Radek (Jurgen Prochnow), the President of the United States, James Marshall (Ford), outlines a new strategy for combating evil in the world: the U.S. will no longer play defense but rather seek to eliminate it wherever it may be. On his return flight home aboard Air Force One, the President finds himself in the middle of a gunfight between the secret service and a group of terrorists who boarded the plane under false pretenses. Thought to have fled through an escape pod, the President, unwilling to leave his wife and daughter aboard the plane and at the mercy of violent thugs, secretly remains aboard, choosing to take the fight to the enemy and retake his plane. The terrorist leader, Ivan Korshunov (Gary Oldman, Bram Stoker's Dracula), uses a plane full of hostages as pawns in his negotiations with the U.S. Vice President (Glenn Close, The Natural) for the release of General Radek. Executing the hostages one at a time until his demands are met, Korshunov seems to have every angle covered except the presence of a determined President with both the skill and determination to save his family and friends.

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Air Force One (1997)

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Air Force One works well primarily because of not only the clear delineation between good and evil but because the main characters are believably written and nicely portrayed. Harrison Ford's President James Marshall seems a man worthy of the office, a no-nonsense tough guy that plays hardball and doesn't flinch when the opposition throws him the high heat. The script creates an aura of toughness about him, his speech as seen at the beginning of the film on a drastic shift in U.S. foreign policy to a more aggressive stance lends credibility to his actions later in the picture. Marshall is depicted as more than an empty suit delivering empty rhetoric, and because of this, not to mention his unseen but spoken-of history of a Medal of Honor winner in Vietnam, audiences can embrace the character and believe him to be capable of his heroics mentally, emotionally, and physically. He's portrayed not as a John Matrix bulletproof-style hero but rather as a man motivated by family and conscience, his actions never over-the-top but certainly smart and well-played. On the other side of the ledger, Gary Oldman delivers yet another first-class performance as an unwavering, stoic, belligerent, and highly intelligent adversary who follows through on his threats and is the exact sort of villain that Marshall believes cannot be reasoned with by words but only at the barrel of a gun. Indeed, Air Force One seems to go out of its way to show that taking a no-nonsense approach to combating evil – even if it means going against the grain, public opinion, or, Heaven forbid, political advisors is the only logical course of action when dealing with the bottom-scrapers that would murder and terrorize for their own gain.

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Air Force One (1997)

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Director Wolfgang Petersen uses the film's primary setting, the jumbo jet, to nice effect, creating a cramped and somewhat claustrophobic feel that always adds a fair amount of tension and danger to the film. The shootouts look great and sound even better (the film earning an Oscar nomination for its sound), and despite a rather goofy-appearing special effect at the end of the film that looks more like something out of a Ray Harryhausen movie, the many aerial combat sequences impress. Nevertheless, Air Force One just cannot escape the feel that it's nothing more than a Die Hard clone, though it does manage to surpass the somewhat similarly-themed Die Hard 2: Die Harder in most every area. Though the two films share a basic premise of a group of terrorists seeking the release of an imprisoned world leader, Air Force One betters Die Hard 2 with more intense action, superior acting, steadier direction, and improved pacing. This is probably the film Die Hard 2 should have been. With a few minor changes, particularly substituting McClaine for the President but perhaps still finding a way to focus the action on an in-flight Air Force One, Die Hard 2 may have turned out a bit better. Nevertheless, Air Force One impresses on its own merits, particularly thanks to the efforts of lead actors Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman.

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Air Force One (1997)

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