Director: Stuart Baird
Writers: Jim Thomas, John Thomas
Cast: Kurt Russell, David Suchet, Halle Berry, John Leguizamo, Oliver Platt, J.T. Walsh, Steven Seagal, Whip Hubley
Running time: 135 minutes

Two things to know before you go see this film: 1) it’s not an action movie, and 2) it’s not a Steven Seagal movie. It’s a thriller, and a fairly good one, at that. The fact is, you can’t very well have groups of people running around on an airplane and having an extended shoot-out for the majority of a film. You know that eventually there will be a confrontation, but when it comes, the action will have to be relatively quick and short-lived.

The film begins with a counter-terrorist operation, led by Colonel Austin Travis (Steven Seagal). His team unsuccessfully attempts to recover some nerve-gas. Don’t worry—it’ll turn up later. He blames Dr. David Grant (Kurt Russell), a think-tank Ph. D, for the "wild-goose chase," who in turns blames the failure on the Colonel’s tardiness. For revenge, Colonel Travis invites Grant along on his next operation.

This operation involves boarding a hijacked 747. A team of Arab terrorists hijacks the plane in order to get their leader—recently captured by an American intelligence operation—released. The leader of the hijackers is played very convincingly by David Suchet. I must admit to a certain prejudice when it comes to Mr. Suchet, as he plays my favorite fictional detective (Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot) on the PBS series, "Poirot."

The supporting roles are also played quite well. Halle Berry is a level-headed, intelligent stewardess (flight attendant for the politically correct crowd) who is called on to help the good guys. Oliver Platt plays a computer engineer, Mr. Cahill, that accidentally gets caught up in the operational phase of the mission to thwart the hijackers. The Special Forces soldiers are also well-played, though the attempt to portray as many different races as possible is slightly distracting. The one sour note in the cast is the inclusion of Marla Maples Trump; her famous sugar daddy must have coughed up some serious money to get her into the film. She is quite simply awful as a frightened stewardess. Mercifully, her screen time is short.

The Arab terrorists are adequately evil: your basic run-of-the-mill fundamentalist, suicidal Muslims. I’ve been hearing quite a bit about how Arabs feel they are being unjustly portrayed negatively in movies. It’s somewhat true—they’re the only group left that can be comfortably cast as villains in our politically-correct age. However, considering that 95% of the world’s terrorism is conducted and funded by Arabs—with the tacit support of several Arab nations—I don’t feel it is too much of a stretch to depict an airplane hijacking conducted by Arab terrorists.

There is a good sequence involving a multimedia video conference. Cahill is sitting in his grungy apartment, in his grungy clothes, "attending" a Pentagon briefing by way of his computer. On the other end of the computer linkup, Colonel Travis, Dr. Grant and various government bigwigs sit around a huge conference table, peering into a large computer screen on the wall and interacting with Mr. Cahill.

The story is good, and the film kept me on the edge of my seat. The pace of the film is also good; despite being over two hours, it doesn’t drag. However, don’t go expecting a lot of action: the expectation of the eventual fighting is what drives the film’s tension.

Overall, "Executive Decision" works as an engrossing thriller. It has the necessary ingredients: an excellent villain, good performances, good pacing, high production values, and some neat electronic toys. One thing I especially liked was the avoidance of snappy, cute one-liners. These have become the standard tension relievers in this type of film, courtesy of Arnold Schwarzeneggar and the James Bond series. I noticed only one, which was quite acceptable.