Air Force One (1997, R)

Directed by Wolfgang Peterson (In the Line of Fire)

Written by Andrew W. Marlowe

Starring Harrison Ford (The Fugative), Gary Oldman (The Professional), William H. Macy, and Glenn Close (Fatal Attraction)

As Reviewed by James Brundage (MovieKritic2000)

Let’s say one thing first. Anyone who was expecting to find a really good movie inside of something that combines Wolfgang Peterson, the director of "In the Line of Fire" with Harrison Ford of the Star Wars Trilogy and Gary Oldman, who played the slack-jawed sociopath in the worst movie of the summer, The Fifth Element, couldn’t be good. Granted, In the Line of Fire was one of the best assassin stories told since Six Days in May and the Star Wars Trilogy is at least a fun bunch, but the two-out-of-three-ain’t-bad rule just doesn’t apply to movies.

In fact, in this movie, what you’d expect is almost reversed.

Gary Oldman is the only one who shows anything worth watching on the screen while Peterson’s copycat style and Ford’s Rambo with wrinkles simply don’t work.

Air Force One is supposed to be a story about the hijacking of the president’s plane, but is really simply the hijacking of about five other plane movies in disguise.

Having somebody go into the machinery and cause mischief? Sound like Executive Decision? Having people being pulled from one plane to another by a wire? The robbery sequence in Cliffhanger. Having a kills quick and never dies superman on the plane? An obvious shoot off of Passenger 57. And having a demented sociopath in control of a flight? Turbulence or Con Air, take your pick.

For me this was one of those movies in which I was wondering why I saw it in the first place as I came out of the theater. That and it was one of the movies in which you know exactly what is going to happen makes those two hours ones in which I wish life had a return policy on it.