Plane – A Serviceable Action Thriller (Early Review)

Plane is the newest Gerard Butler action thriller that involves you guessed it, a plane. After having to crash land his commercial aircraft during a terrible storm, pilot Brodie Torrance (Butler) finds himself caught in the middle of a warzone alongside his passengers and a mysterious prisoner named Louis Gaspare (Colter) who must fight to survive against heavily armed anti-government militias and find a way off the island while rescue experts attempt to find their location at the same time. January is commonly referred to as a dumping ground for Hollywood and most of the films released during the month aren’t of the greatest quality or are flat out terrible especially ones that come out in the second week of the month. While Plane is about as original, lazy, and generic as it’s title and certainly isn’t anything to write home about, it’s a serviceable enough action thriller and a whole lot better than what you’d typically expect out of a January release.

Butler has reached a point in his career where he’s essentially playing the exact same character in every film and this is no exception but thankfully, he’s still really good at playing these types of characters. Though this likely won’t be a role he’s remembered for 20 years down the line, Butler makes for a capable lead and holds the film together throughout like the star he is while adding a bit more depth to his character than what was presumably on the page. As solid as he is, Colter gives the best performance in the film and is the character audiences will grow the most attached to despite not getting to know him very well or getting as much screentime as Butler. Butler and Colter create a pretty good dynamic and have very natural chemistry together despite not having the best script or the deepest characters to work with while both selling the action sequences. Outside of them, Goldwyn, and Paul Ben-Victor most of the acting is pretty poor and the characters are completely forgettable. Thankfully, the supporting characters aren’t given a lot of focus or screen time.

Plane is directed by Jean-François Richet whose previous work includes the highly underrated Assault on Precinct 13 remake and 2016’s underappreciated Blood Father with Mel Gibson, so luckily this film and the action sequences are all directed rather well. The action isn’t anything overly memorable and does get a bit far fetched by the end but every set piece is helmed well by Richet and solid enough in the moment. This is a pretty middle of the road film but it moves by at a quick pace, wastes hardly anytime on setup, and manages to entertain for a majority of it’s length. While the film offers nothing new or original of any kind, it delivers exactly what its target audience would expect or hope to see out of it.

All that being said, this somehow feels pretty cheaply put together and a little schlocky for something with a $50 million budget but then again some may go into this hoping for it to feel like that. The visual effects are noticeably terrible as audiences have to suspend their disbelief at times especially as the movie progresses but yet again, some may be hoping for that. There’s a subplot involving Torrance’s other passengers that slows the film right down and could’ve been trimmed down to make the film an even tighter watch. But at the end of the day, it is an undemanding and refreshingly simple action thriller that gives audiences exactly what they’d hope for out of a film simply called Plane.

If audiences go into it with the right expectations, they will likely have a decent time with Plane. Unless they are a big fan of Gerard Butler or these types of films, it might not come with strong recommendations but if they have any sort of interest in it, it would make for an absolutely perfect rental or streaming watch somewhere down the line.

still courtesy of Lionsgate

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Connor Carey

www.connorsmoviereviews.com/