PLANE

Directing: B
Acting: B
Writing: B
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B+

Gerard Butler seems to have settled comfortably in his role as ruler of a particular genre: the low-rent action movie. And as such movies go, Plane, rather surprisingly, sits on the higher end. This is solid entertainment, a movie that fulfills its promise, never being anything other than what it set out to be. It’s nothing special either, mind you, but that hardly bears mentioning. This movie isn’t trying to be special, it’s only trying to be a good time at the movies.

It’s a relief, as a matter of fact, that Plane does not go out of its way to telegraph that it doesn’t take itself seriously. On the other hand, it doesn’t take itself too seriously, either. It strikes just the right balance, for the most part avoiding the cliche of the action hero’s pithy lines (although there’s a line or two near the end that come close).

Actually, it’s less “action” than a cross between a disaster movie and a hostage thriller. It even sort of breaks these elements apart, with the hostage part sandwiched between thrilling airplane flight sequences: first a crash landing as the result of a lightning strike in the middle of a storm; then a daring escape on the plane that miraculously still works (with a lot of its instruments fried). Either way, let’s call it Die Hard on an Island. Only in this case, the heroes aren’t full of sardonic asides.

Plane is also a “buddy movie” of sorts, but with a fairly unique twist. This flight, en route to Tokyo from Singapore, has only a handful of passengers (not sure how often that happens, but it’s convenient for plotting), and captain Brodie Torrance (Butler) has been informed he is also carrying a man charged with murder being extradited (Mike Colter). Once the plane lands—skillfully by Torrance once he spies a road on the island—it’s these two industrious, former military men who find themselves working together.

There’s a quietly progressive way these men, one White and one Black, are treated onscreen. Race is never discussed or addressed directly in any way in this movie, and it even narrowly avoids problematic depictions of local island Filipinos by making the villains “separatists” who run the island. Colter is cast to look like an intimidating, very large and strong, bald Black man, who, once he has teamed up with Torrance, quickly proves both competent and at ease with himself, a guy with personality to spare. Plane exists in a world where racial tensions just don’t exist, which, in a movie like this one, is a perfectly good choice. Colter’s Louis Gaspare is presented as intimidating not because of his race, but because of his size and status as an accused murderer.

And, spoiler alert, we never even find out if Gaspare actually killed anyone. “Wrong place at the wrong time” is the phrase he uses when referring to whatever the incident was fifteen years before that got him here. He knows how to use weapons, and ultimately comes to Torrence’s rescue.

There aren’t any slickly choreographed fight sequences in Plane, but rather a series of increasingly desperate near-misses, keeping the tension effectively high. Torrence gets into a fight with a local islander, and cinematographer Brendan Galvin shoots it with effective urgency. He does the same in the flight landing sequence, almost imperceptively jerking the camera forward toward Butler’s face with each jolt of turbulence in the cockpit.

Plane is quite definitively a B-movie, right down to its plain and simple title. I can just imagine the pitches for what to title this film, only to wind up landing on the obvious. Talk about on the nose; it barely stops short of being tongue-in-cheek. This film’s refusal to go anywhere near camp is one of my favorite things about it. Director Jean-François Richet has no interest in winking at his audience, and that choice is what elevates the material, if only slightly. It’s still B-movie entertainment, and yet, the pointed title notwithstanding, it’s never ridiculous. These days, that kind of subtle earnestness almost qualifies as subversive. This is the perfect January release, one that won’t put on airs and lives up to its promise.

I spent way too much time looking for a screenshot featuring both Gerard Butler and the plane.

Overall: B