Guest Review: Backdraft (1991)

By ScottDS

Ron Howard’s Backdraft turned out to be the last movie I watched in 2013. I had never seen it before. It also happened to be one of the cheesiest movies I watched in 2013. In my Air Force One review, I criticized that film for being “too cinematic” with clichés that happen for no other reason than because we expect them to. Backdraft, as entertaining as it is – and it is entertaining – suffers from this in spades.

Meet the McCaffrey brothers: Stephen the older one (Kurt Russell) and Brian the younger one (William Baldwin). As a child, Brian saw their firefighter dad die while fighting a large blaze and after a series of odd jobs, he’s decided to return to firefighting. He’s assigned to Stephen’s station: Engine 17 in Chicago. Stephen is reckless and frequently disregards his own safety, much to the chagrin of fellow firefighter John Adcox (Scott Glenn), who watched over the McCaffreys after their father died. At the same time, Alderman Martin Swayzak (the late J.T. Walsh) is running for mayor but is facing some heat [rimshot] for his budget cuts, which have caused several firehouses to be decommissioned; this puts our heroes in ever-greater danger.

The competition between the two brothers is fierce and Brian eventually leaves. He gets a job working for arson investigator Donald “Shadow” Rimgale (Robert De Niro, whose moniker proves you can’t have a movie about a group of blue-collar guys without nicknames). The fires all have one thing in common: the backdraft – a fire resulting from the sudden re-introduction of oxygen into a previously oxygen-free environment. We eventually learn that Alderman Swayzak is benefiting financially from the shuddered fire stations – they are to be turned into community centers and his construction company cronies will get big contracts. Sadly, we also learn that Adcox is the arsonist, getting his revenge on the financial hacks who suggested the idea via a phony manpower study. Both Stephen and Adcox die in a climactic chemical plant fire. Brian, despite his previous doubts, continues as a firefighter.

This movie is exciting. The pre-CGI fire scenes are excellent. The film was actually nominated for Best Visual Effects (and justifiably lost to T2), and the pyro guys certainly deserved all the recognition they received. ILM did a handful of miniature shots but with one exception, I couldn’t tell what was what. Kurt Russell is always fun to watch and that all-American swagger and smirk are quite present here. William Baldwin is… fine. I suppose anyone could’ve played this role, but Baldwin has just the right amount of earnestness and naiveté. (Though I’m not sure if it’s sincere or just bad acting!) J.T. Walsh is excellent as always and I know what you’re thinking: a corrupt politician? In Chicago? Walsh was one of the quintessential “Hey, it’s that guy!” actors and I miss him. He passed away in 1998. Donald Sutherland has a small role as an arsonist who helps Brian, à la Hannibal Lecter – more on him a bit.

Ron Howard… his filmography is quite varied to say the least. I’ve heard good things about Rush but, as far as the last decade goes, The Dilemna looked horrible, Frost/Nixon was good but ultimately forgettable, and the two Robert Langdon movies were just bland. I enjoy Apollo 13 quite a bit, though I don’t think A Beautiful Mind was necessarily worthy of Best Picture. (If you want a better Ron Howard/Russell Crowe movie, check out the overlooked Cinderella Man.) As it stands, he has yet to make his Schindler’s List and I’m not entirely sure he has it in him. Not every director does. Many of the criticisms against Howard all have the same keywords in common: “hack,” “safe,” “sterile,” “commercial-friendly,” etc. When Spielberg goes dark and edgy, we’re “witnessing the maturation of an artist.” When Howard does it, it’s “Opie is in over his head!” He just hasn’t cranked it up to 11 yet. Maybe Rush will change my opinion. (But the man helped bring Arrested Development into the world so he ultimately gets a pass!)

As usual, I’ll leave it to the experts. Here’s a thoughtful and accurate take on Howard by Grantland’s Tom Carson: “Spielberg's real genius is that he has made his neuroses (Daddy, where art thou?) and paradoxically practical-minded version of transcendence part of the average moviegoer's comfort zone, obviously not the case with Howard. Like Spielberg, Howard has directed movies in all sorts of genres. But unlike Spielberg, he doesn't enrich – let alone renew – them with a detectable perspective of his own. The ability to rip the mass audience a new comfort zone is one definition of mainstream greatness, from Walt Disney and Frank Capra to [Spielberg] himself. Howard, by contrast, just abides by existing formulas and does a better carpentry job than most. A poet he isn't, although he did well enough by whimsy – poetry's crowd-pleasing kid brother – in Splash.”

But in the case of Backdraft, everything that I thought would happen ended up happening. And the script – by former firefighter Gregory Widen, who also wrote Highlander – piles on cliché after cliché. We have the sibling rivalry, which apparently never ended. We have the new guy’s even cockier best friend (played by Jason Gedrick) – he’s the character in World War II movies who would die after showing the guys a picture of his sweetheart back home. In this movie, he ends up horribly disfigured. In the war movies, the character was usually named something like Kowalsky. In this movie, it’s Krizminski! We have not one, but two lost loves. Stephen frequently visits his estranged wife Helen (Rebecca De Mornay) and their son, while Brian’s ex-girlfriend Jennifer (a bored-looking Jennifer Jason Leigh) conveniently works in the Alderman’s office. Brian and Jennifer make love on top of a fire truck, which is something I’d expect to see in a Michael bay movie.

And speaking of Michael Bay, my first reaction after the movie ended was, “Wow, it was like a Michael Bay movie, but pre-Bay!” Armageddon and Pearl Harbor specifically came to mind. All three movies feature rivalries, cheesy romantic interludes, and a group of guys going into battle with a strange and relentless force. Both De Niro and Sutherland’s characters anthropomorphize fire. At one point, Sutherland asks, “Did the fire look at you?” And De Niro insists fire is a living thing that eats and breathes and hates. The only way to fight a fire is to love it a little bit. Um… okay then. Ask any firefighter and they’ll tell you it’s mainly scientific: collection and analysis of data, development and testing of a hypothesis, and finally a conclusion. Gut feelings and love? Save it for the dating scene. (And many firefighters have pointed out that there isn’t enough smoke in this movie, but too much smoke would obscure the actors.)

This movie also features one of my pet peeves: making one of the heroes the villain. It’s a trope as old as the hills and maybe we’ve just seen it too many times… but the entire time I kept thinking, “Please don’t let the arsonist be one of the firefighters!” Adcox feels justified in his actions, and he dies for his sins. In cases like this, you can usually do one of three things for the audience: a.) save the reveal for the end which happens here, b.) show us the villain from the start (like the traitorous Secret Service agent in Air Force One), or c.) simply have it be a random person. But, in terms of storytelling, how satisfying would it be for the arsonist to be just one random nut that we never saw before, played by a glorified extra? But contrast this (and Air Force One) with Executive Decision: all the heroes remain heroes, and they even manage to get another villain – the bomb-maker – into the film in the last 20 minutes! (Hey, Kurt Russell and J.T. Walsh were in that movie, too!)

A few more Bay touches are included… there’s a cheesy training montage, complete with inspirational ballad (Bruce Hornsby’s “The Show Goes On”) and slow-motion shots of Brian hosing himself off, his hair waving to and fro. A filmmaker like Ron Howard shouldn’t be using such clichés; he should be creating new clichés for other filmmakers to use! And the score by Hans Zimmer… wow. I think every cue in this movie has been used in a trailer at some point. And this was early Zimmer, before he became the creator of this overused thing. The score is anything but subtle, but I’ll take it over the droning background noise that passes for movie scoring today. The other technical stuff is all first-rate. After shooting The Abyss for James Cameron, this movie was no doubt a cakewalk for cinematographer Mikael Salomon. And it’s nice to see Chicago playing itself. No Toronto or Bulgaria in this movie!

In a world where there aren’t enough movies about firefighters, this one will have to do… at least until someone else directs a better (and better-written) one. It’s entertaining – your typical Hollywood 90s-era blockbuster, pre-CGI, pre-shaky-cam. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it looks and sounds like every other wheel out there.

“What about fire?”
“Fire?”
“Yes. It consumes fuel to produce energy… it grows… it creates offspring… by your definition, is it alive?”
“Fire is a chemical reaction. You could make the same argument for growing crystals… but obviously, we don't consider them alive.”

(This is dialogue from a Star Trek: TNG episode – they cover the subject better than this movie!)

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Film Friday: Stargate (1994)

Every time I see Stargate, I wonder why I don’t like this film more than I do. I love the idea. The actors are perfectly cast too. I even love the television series that followed. Yet, after a good start, the film very quickly leaves me cold. Ultimately, I think the problem is this just isn’t a smart film.

** spoiler alert **

The Plot

Stargate begins with the introduction of Dr. Daniel Jackson (James Spade). He’s an Egyptologist and linguistics professor with a strange theory about the Egyptians not building the Great Pyramids. He doesn’t know who did build them, but he’s sure it wasn’t the Egyptians. Jackson is asked by the Air Force to join a secret project. The Air Force has in its possession a device, found in Egypt, which they are trying to understand. Jackson solves the riddle the Air Force team couldn’t and they learn the device is a stargate, which lets you transport almost instantly to the location of any other gate in the galaxy.

A reconnaissance team is sent through the gate, led by Col. Jack O’Neil (Kurt Russell). They end up inside a pyramid on a planet that looks a lot like Ancient Egypt. To return, they need to find a cartouche containing symbols that tell them how to operate the gate from that side. As they search, they meet a group of humans who are slaves to Ra, the Egyptian god. Ra, it turns out, is an alien creature who occupies human bodies to live forever. The reconnaissance team has brought a nuclear bomb with them with instructions to blow up the gate if they find life. Ra takes the bomb and plans to blow up the Earth with it, but the team saves the day.

The Problem

Stargate is one of those films that starts strong and leaves you impressed with the overall idea of the stargate. But actually watching the film turns out to be a pretty darn dull experience. This is because the film just isn’t a very smart film.

Consider the plot. The plot starts strong with the introduction of a mystery. You have an unknown device that must be decrypted. You have the mystery of who built the pyramids. You have a secret military project hidden in a missile silo. This is all very exciting and offers much potential. Unfortunately, it only lasts about five minutes. Jackson solves the mystery and they open the stargate. Everything you have seen up to this point is now finished and a new movie begins, a movie based on what is on the other side of the gate. Still, that sounds like it has a lot of potential, right? Sure, except at this point, the film runs out of ideas. On the other side of the gate, the reconnaissance team finds a desert and a hostile alien, and the rest of the film is little more than an action film where a small band of soldiers must defeat the god-like Ra. There is no mystery, no intrigue and no more ideas to make you think.

Moreover, at this point, all the writing becomes exposition. . . blatant exposition. For example, rather than showing the audience why Earth can’t turn on the gate from their end to let the recon team return, the writers have a soldier ask the question “Why can’t Earth just turn it on” and another soldier responds, “Haven’t you heard? It doesn’t work that way.” Exposition stinks. It’s poor writing. It saps a film of the scenes that make the film memorable.

In this case, it would have added a lot to the film to have Earth turn on the gate and have a team member try to walk though, only to have the guy disintegrate. That would have given the audience a visceral, memorable moment. Instead, it becomes a forgettable line of dialog. Making this failure even worse, it’s not like the film was packed with so much that there wasn’t more time for another impactful scene. To the contrary, about 90% of the film was quite dull, with the recon team befriending the natives, falling for the native girl, or just walking around in the sand.

Unfortunately, the entire film after they open the stargate is like this. Who are these humans on this new planet? Their leader tells us. Who is Ra? Ra tells us. How do we know Ra is an alien? He tells us. He has a device that lets him resurrect the dead. How do we know that? We’re told. Nothing in the second half of the film is shown to the audience, it’s all just told to us through exposition.

Now compare that to the first part of the film. How do we know Jackson’s theories aren’t accepted by the scientific community? He’s giving a lecture and people start walking out. They mock him. How do we know he’s a genius? He arrives at the project and within seconds fixes a mistranslation the team has been working with for months. A few minutes later, he solves the mystery of the stargate and he finds the missing symbol the rest of them didn’t see. In truth, these are fake achievements and the more you think about them, the dumber they become – for example, the translation isn’t really relevant since they have the gate and it’s not like anyone with a brain would need “gateway to Heaven” to be re-translated into “stargate” to get the meaning – but the point is that you are shown actions which show you what you need to know, you aren’t just told.

Here’s another example. Col. O’Neil is messed up because his son accidentally shot himself with O’Neil’s gun. How do we know this? When O’Neil is introduced to us, we see him sitting on his bed holding his gun, looking at a picture of his son, as his wife tells the MPs that he won’t talk to anyone. Yes, the MPs tell the audience what happened to O’Neil’s son, but not until after we figured it out. Again, the difference is huge. By seeing this, we understand viscerally what is going on in O’Neil’s mind. If we were only told, then it wouldn’t really sink in.

So why don’t we get to see Ra steal his latest body? Why don’t we get a real mystery of who the people on this new planet are? Because the filmmakers either weren’t very bright or they got lazy. Fixing this issue alone would have made this movie an order of magnitude better by giving us three or four more truly memorable scenes. Right now, there aren’t any after the opening of the gate.

Another problem with this film, is that everything in it is cliché. That’s more evidence of lazy writing. For example, why would Gen. West give the reconnaissance team a nuclear bomb? Well, because he’s a soldier and the Hollywood trope has it that soldiers want to blow up what they don’t understand. But this nonsense. No one would blow up a find like the stargate. Moreover, why even send the reconnaissance team? Why not just send the bomb? The whole concept is clichéd and stupid. The film is packed with moments like this: the stupid science team awaiting the genius, the soldier who will throw aside his orders to save a kid, the native girl who falls for the hero, the villain with no purpose other than being villainous.

Stargate could have been a top five science film in my opinion if the writers had given any thought to turning all the exposition into scenes to let the audience discover what is going on. Stretch out the mystery of who built the Great Pyramids. Introduce us to the alien Ra by showing him switch bodies and seeing the horror of both humans as it leaves the old body and takes over the new. And find non-cliché motives for Gen. West, Jack O’Neil, and Ra. But the writer’s didn’t do this, and what could have been a great film ended up a pretty darn dull film to watch.

Thoughts?

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Film Friday: The Thing (1982) & (2011)

John Carpenter’s The Thing is a classic in the world of science fiction/horror. It’s tense, it’s creative, and it’s solidly acted. In 2011, they remade The Thing. . . sort of. The remake is an ok film, but doesn’t hold a candle to the original, and it’s the “sort of” which becomes the real problem.

** spoiler alert **

Carpenter’s The Thing is the story of a small group of scientists at an American research station in Antarctica. As the story opens, an Alaskan Malamute rushes into the camp where the Americans are gathered. The dog is being chased by two Norwegians in a helicopter, who are trying to kill the dog. They fail and are killed in the process. After this, helicopter pilot R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russell) and Doctor Copper (Richard Dysart), fly to the Norwegian camp to learn what happened. Everyone at the Norwegian camp is dead, but MacReady and Copper discover that the Norwegians found what appears to be a spaceship in the ice, and they brought its occupant back to their camp.

MacReady and Copper return home with the alien, where they examine its body and discover that the cells in the dead alien are still alive. Moreover, these cells attack any cells they come into contact with and duplicate them perfectly. Soon it becomes clear that one or more of the Americans has been duplicated by the alien, and the group struggles with not knowing who is human and who is now an alien.

Although the critics hated this film when it was first released and it barely made its money back, this version has withstood the test of time, and for good reason. This version is tense, interesting and eminently rewatchable, and the reason is that the story isn’t about these scientists being chased by a monster, it’s about them turning on each other out of fear. Indeed, the monster is rarely seen in the film and it only exposes itself when it is discovered. It doesn’t run around stalking the other characters. Instead, they fight amongst themselves.

The heart of The Thing is its characters, who are all uniquely written and uniquely acted. Russell play MacReady in the mold of all antiheroes. He’s quiet, detached, and yet highly aggressive when needed. Besides him, you have a group of actors who are easy to tell apart – some are short and fat, some are tall and thin. Two are black, one small and one muscular. You have a hippy/UFO nut, an armchair warrior, a simpleton, an old guy, etc. They all dress very differently. They all wear their hair differently. They speak in unique styles, using unique words and phrases. They have unique personalities.

Indeed, their personalities are key. These people act like people who’ve been cooped up together long enough for personality conflicts to abound. They don’t all like each other, their quirks annoy the others, and they know that not each of them can be trusted in a crisis. All of this causes them to struggle to work together, which is what gives this story it’s true tension: waiting to see if someone is an alien is tense, but not knowing who to trust with the gun to shoot the alien is inspired tension.

And that brings us to the remake. If I’d never seen The Thing before, then this remake would have been a decent if forgettable movie. It’s not stupid or nonsensical. It’s well-enough shot, though it uses the shaky cam for no apparent reason. The story itself doesn’t hold together nearly as well as the original as there are too many “yeah, but” moments, but all in all, this is better than a lot of the indifferent garbage that passes for science fiction horror today.

Still, this film doesn’t hold a candle next to the original, and I think there are two specific and related reasons for this. The first is the cast. Whereas the actors in the original really stand apart, these actors and their characters don’t. There’s the chick (two actually) and the black dude floating around somewhere, but beyond that you’ve got 8-10 middle age white dudes. They are all the same size and shape. They have the same blondish-brown hair, all cut to the same length. They are all unshaven and wear the same clothes. And even worse, they are almost all Norwegians, so they all have nearly identical accents and inflections. You won’t be able to tell these people apart easily, nor will you catch their names.

Moreover, the main characters, Kate (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), Dr. Havlorson (Ulrich Thomsen) and Carter (Joel Edgerton) are all outsiders, so this cast lacks the interpersonal relationships which drive the original. We don’t know who has gotten on whose nerves, who they have all recognized as a hothead or useless or as their natural leader, and we see no sense of any friendships. Because of this, this film is little more than a monster chase movie rather than a psychological thriller like the original.

Secondly, the main actors simply don’t compare to the originals. Kurt Russell brings an incredible intensity which tells you that he will make it through the film alive. That gives the film energy as you watch him struggle to overcome the hurdles in his way. It also gives you a shock when the film ends. By comparison, Winstead is a cutie, but you know this little girl would never survive ten seconds of a monster attack. She also never radiates leadership and she doesn’t even seem to know what she’s supposed to do -- she just looks pensive a lot.

Or compare Childs (David Keith), who was Russell’s foil in the original, against helicopter pilot Carter. Keith commands respect with his deep voice and his violent presence. He seems like a man on the edge, torn between wanting to lead and being terrified of this creature. He is tightly wound and ready to explode at any moment. Carter is a wimp who never really does anything, least of all challenges Winstead. The other foil they give Winstead is Dr. Halvorson, but he’s a wimp as well, and he’s snotty about it. He’s the type of whiner who sends sternly worded letters, not lead flying downrange.

So not only does the remake lose the interpersonal struggles which define the characters and make the original so tense to watch, but it gives you characters you can’t care about -- an indifferent girl with no heroic traits, a wimp, a jerk and some Norwegian red-shirts.

And all of this comes from the second failure. What failure? Well, I said above that this film was “sort of” a remake. As you’re watching this film the first time, you’ll notice that it basically tracks the original by and large. That makes it feel like a weak remake. But once the ending credits begin rolling, you are given a glimpse of how the story continues. This includes a new Norwegian arriving by helicopter, finding a survivor and finding a dog, realizing what it is, and chasing the dog in their helicopter. In other words, this is how the original opens and we are now led to believe that the remake is in fact a prequel which tells the story of what happened at the Norwegian camp MacReady and Copper find.

This is a mistake for two reasons. First, this feels like a gimmick since the entire film felt like a generic remake of the original. It feels like something that is tacked on to the end to give the audience something to take home, because the rest of the film had nothing to offer. Secondly, this forced the filmmakers into using the Norwegian camp as the setting, and that led to the problem of these characters being too alike. Then adding the outside Americans as the leaders feels fake, disrupts the personalities (if there are any), and probably seems a little insulting to anyone in Norway who watches this. All in all, this was a truly unwise decision, especially as it had no real payoff.

So I absolutely recommend the original and I think the remake is worth wasting some time on, but the remake ends up being a truly wasted opportunity because it failed to build on what worked so well in the original.

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Guest Review: Air Force One (1997) vs. Executive Decision (1996)

By ScottDS. The success of Die Hard spawned a new genre: “Die Hard on a [blank]” with [blank] representing everything from a bus to a hockey arena. It was inevitable we would see “Die Hard on a plane” and two of the best examples are 1996’s Executive Decision and 1997’s Air Force One. However, while Air Force One is the more successful of the two, I believe Executive Decision is the leaner, more efficient film. Neither film is a work of art, however one is oblivious to its stupidity while the other is almost aware of it.

In Air Force One, Harrison Ford is President James Marshall, veteran Vietnam helicopter pilot and Medal of Honor recipient. We open with the capturing of Ivan Radek, a terrorist dictator in Kazakhstan. Three weeks later, Marshall delivers a speech at a Moscow state dinner. He reminds the guests that the U.S. will not sit idly by while atrocities occur halfway around the world. Meanwhile, a group of Radek loyalists posing as a Russian news crew is allowed to board Air Force One. Their leader is Egor Korshunov (Gary Oldman, a tad over the top).

Assisted by a traitorous Secret Service agent, Korsh and his men hijack the plane. Marshall is rushed to the escape pod (an ingenious, albeit fictional idea) while Korsh kills the pilots and sets a course for Kazakhstan. He calls VP Kathryn Bennett (Glenn Close) and demands Radek’s release from prison. Marshall, hiding in the avionics bay, calls the White House. Korsh has taken First Lady Grace and First Daughter Alice up to the cockpit area. Several hostages parachute to safety during refueling but one of Korsh’s men causes the parachute bay to depressurize. Korsh takes Marshall hostage and demands Radek’s release. Marshall acquiesces but eventually breaks free and kills Korsh while Radek is killed outside the prison. Marshall takes control of the plane but it's badly damaged during a firefight. An Air Force Pararescue plane evacuates the remaining passengers. The Secret Service agent reveals himself but Marshall escapes and the agent goes down with the ship.

This is an exciting movie! Wolfgang Petersen directs from a script by first-time screenwriter (and future Castle creator) Andrew Marlowe. This might be Harrison Ford’s last great action movie and he’s right at home playing a tough-talking Commander in Chief. The supporting cast is populated by familiar character actors like Paul Guilfoyle and Philip Baker Hall, and they all do good work. This film is also a great opportunity to explore Air Force One itself, an aircraft to which most of us will never have access. Editing, sound, and cinematography are all first-rate – this was the pre-shaky-cam era. The visual effects are top-notch (with one exception) and Jerry Goldsmith’s music score is heavy on action and patriotism (my local critic labeled it “cheddary”).

On the other hand, I feel Glenn Close overacts as Bennett. The Secret Service agent’s motive is never explained. There’s a useless subplot where SecDef Walter Dean (Dean Stockwell, channeling Alexander Haig) insists he’s in charge, despite what the 25th Amendment says. William H. Macy is fine as Major Caldwell but he tells Marshall he doesn’t know how to fly a plane… except he has pilot wings on his uniform! The script is full of the usual clichés, including a wire-cutting scene and a cell phone losing reception, and some of the dialogue is cringe-inducing, especially the Situation Room material where the overacting doesn’t help. The CGI shots of Air Force One crashing into the Caspian Sea are some of the worst effects seen in a major motion picture!

Executive Decision features Kurt Russell as David Grant, a think tank nerd. We open with a team of Special Forces operatives led by LTC. Austin Travis (Steven Seagal) raiding a Chechen mafia safe house on the hunt for a stolen Soviet nerve gas, DZ-5… but it’s not there. Cut to: David Grant learning how to fly. I can’t help but admire this blatant setup. Grant is notified that El Sayed Jaffa (the late Andreas Katsulas), one of the world’s most notorious terrorist leaders, has been taken into U.S. custody. Some time later, Oceanic Airlines Flight 343 departs Athens on its way to Washington D.C. It’s hijacked by Jaffa’s deputy director, Nagi Hassan (David Suchet), and his men. The film never explains how their weapons are already stored aboard the plane.

Grant is summoned to the Pentagon where SecDef Charles White (Len Cariou) is running the show. (The president is never named; the VP isn’t mentioned at all.) They listen to a message from Hassan, who wants Jaffa released. Grant believes Hassan himself arranged for Jaffa’s capture and that Hassan has the DZ-5 aboard the plane and wishes to detonate it over D.C., but how will they prove it? Travis has them contact Dennis Cahill (Oliver Platt), an engineer who has developed an aircraft called the Remora, which will allow a team to transfer mid-air on board the hijacked airliner. Travis wants Grant to tag along, even though he's out of his element. They’re met at Andrews AFB by Cahill and Travis’ team: Louie (B.D. Wong), Baker (Whip Hubley), Rat (John Leguizamo), and Cappy (Joe Morton). Once docking begins, things get bumpy and Cappy is knocked unconscious. Grant climbs up the docking sleeve to help but the stress is too great. Travis sacrifices himself, closing the hatch as the sleeve is blown away. Hiding in the avionics bay, the team has no way of contacting D.C.

Louie discovers a bomb, with DZ-5 canisters and a barometric trigger. Bomb expert Cappy has been rendered immobile but Cahill assists in its dismantling. After Jaffa is released, Hassan kills his second-in-command after the man asks if they’ll be diverting the plane from its course now that their mission is complete. Grant determines that Hassan’s men can’t know about the bomb, but the bomb’s computer had run a diagnostic: there must be a separate trigger man on board. Rat and the men kill the lights and storm the cabin. The trigger man and all of the terrorists are killed but Hassan kills the pilot and co-pilot, so guess who has to land the plane? Rat kills Hassan and, with the assistance of flight attendant Jean (Halle Berry), Grant manages to land at Frederick Field.

I’ve always liked this movie and I believe it’s unfairly overlooked. First-time helmer Stuart Baird (an Oscar-nominated editor by trade) directs from a script by action vets Jim & John Thomas. Baird and his crew get the job done as efficiently as they can. It may sound backhanded but when it comes to the action genre, efficiency is a good thing. Like AF1, editing, sound, and cinematography are all first rate and we’re never confused. The actors mostly do a good job and we get a sense of the team’s camaraderie. Russell is his usual likable self and I like that the bookworm saves the day, not to mention the idea of all the heroes using their gifts: Grant, Cahill, Travis' team, and even the Air Marshal who gets the first shot at Hassan. The flying effects are excellent though the landing features some shoddy model work. Jerry Goldsmith is on autopilot, but that’s better than most composers on their best day!

Both films are a lot of fun and treat their subject matter seriously. However, while AF1 tries to ratchet up the tension with forced melodrama, ED has no time for such things. It’s nine minutes longer but it’s lean: there’s no traitor, no romantic subplot, no kids, no third act surprise. It’s inevitable that Harrison Ford would turn into, as one critic put it, “President Indiana Jones,” but again, I have to admire the scene in ED featuring Kurt Russell learning how to fly, as if the filmmakers are telling us, “Yeah, we know!” Neither script is Oscar-worthy but I would almost prefer no memorable dialogue to Ford’s hammy “Get off my plane!” (but it is satisfying!). The Pentagon scenes in ED are much better than the Situation Room scenes in AF1. Both films feature dependable character actors, but the ones in ED manage to exude the right amount of professionalism and grace under pressure; the ones in AF1, not so much.

While neither film is a masterpiece, ED comes across as slightly more authentic – perhaps because it’s aware of what it is – while AF1’s obliviousness causes it to come across as… almost too “cinematic” with plot developments that happen because we expect them to happen and characters spouting clichés: “Five more minutes!” “There’s no time!” I also find it interesting that one film is directed by a veteran director working with a first-time writer… while the other is directed by a first-time director (albeit a seasoned film professional) working with veteran writers. I guess this proves the old adage: if it ain’t on the page, it ain’t on the stage, even if the stage is a plane.

“These things almost land themselves, don’t they?”

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