Rating: ★★★½ (3.5/5)
I am a huge fan of the movie Greenland. It came out during the pandemic so was largely overlooked but it was actually one of the best disaster movies I’ve ever seen. It kept the scope really small by focusing on one family trying to survive. No view from the top. No flashy rescue plan. You as a viewer didn’t have any information beyond the characters and it made it so much more intense than some other “meteor going to blow up earth” movies are.
I say all that because Plane also starred Gerard Butler in an impossible situation, and was produced by his company G-Base. I don’t know if they are intending to make super intense and grounded films, but they are definitely pulling it off.
I’m not going to go on record saying that Plane is Oscar worthy, or that it is on a level playing field with Greenland, but it did manage to keep me on the edge of my seat and it managed to keep the action grounded and realistic. Realistic to a point at least.
This could have just been another run-of-the-mill plane emergency movie, but it did some fun stuff that made it work better than other emergency movies. Everyone in this movie seemed to behave like a person actually would. There were a couple obnoxious characters just written for you to hate them, but they didn’t really have a baring on the story, which was great. I hate when movies just shoe-horn in these side villains that no one really cares about and it just gives the hero someone to punch.
The story really wasn’t as interesting to me as the characters and how they handled the situations. We had Gerard Butler being sort of an action hero, but kind of in a Die Hard style way. He has some skills, but he’s not out to be an action hero. One fight scene in particular was so real to me, I found myself holding my breath. It wasn’t a martial arts, punch throwing brawl. It was just a couple guys rolling around trying to get the upper hand on each other. I’ve only ever seen one fight in my life in real life and it looked like this. Not organized. Not choreographed. Just two dudes trying to kill each other.
All in all, the dialogue was good. The fights were good. The story was good. I had a great time with this movie. I don’t necessarily need every action movie to have a bulletproof hero in it and in that way this was a breath of fresh air. It wasn’t nearly as impactful to me as Greenland, but I’m not asking it to be. They share some DNA, and they definitely prioritized a sense of realism to a degree, but they are two very different stories.
I had a good time with this one. I’m not gonna run out on a mountain top and shout its praises, but I’d definitely recommend giving it a watch as a cool Saturday night flick.