Things get better for “Plane” as it prepares for a major crash. Our main character – the Airplane – is struck by lightning in a big brutal time, knocking out his power and dooming him to a crash landing. With more looks of “I can’t believe this bad service”, the 14 passengers on board start to gradually go crazy; things get even scarier when someone thinks they can outsmart seat belts. The sequence is laced with intense intensity, I’m glad they’re gone, and a few illustrative stunts — nasty stuff involving head and neck trauma — make a definite point not to test gravity. Butler’s pilot, Brody Torrance, who started the flight with a few Southwest Airlines class jokes over the intercom, pulls off some macho maneuvers and makes his co-pilot Samuel (Joson Ann) count the ten minutes they have before they eventually crash. on a remote island in the Philippines.
During this stormy descent, it’s very strange when “The Airplane” shows a draft of a text message in close-up, but not long enough for us to read what it says. But it’s more of a hint that no character has an important point in this story, except perhaps a captured fugitive named Louis Gaspard (Mike Colter) who is handcuffed to an officer in the back of the plane. His history of committing murder later comes in handy when the plane lands in increasingly hostile territory. Brody, with his history in the Royal Air Force and a gun secretly in his pants, guides him through the mysterious terrain to find help. Butler and Colter continue to fend off the obvious bad guys, with some chemistry between them in the process.
Everything changes for them when, after a communications breach in a shady warehouse (bullets on the floor, not a good sign), a bad guy sneaks up from behind and tries to kill Brody. The ensuing fight is impressive, with the camera mostly lingering on Butler’s face as he wrestles this bigger dude into tight quarters. But nothing is all that exciting or long-lasting from here on out, even as Richet tries to ramp up the danger with ruthless militia men rolling in and kidnapping Brody’s passengers and crew. “Plane” rushes through its emotional and explosive beats so it can get to the next crisis without having to fill the previous one, and wildly skips over the good stuff in the process. Hostage situations are quickly fixed, dumb gunfights are executed as if they were shot on different days, and even Colter’s stiff, silent killer only has his silence to make his stiffness remotely interesting, as he doesn’t get much of an arc despite the ominous promise at the beginning. It’s just a bunch of action movie mush, rendering the jungle terrain with a color tint that matches the damp sweat on Butler’s T-shirt.
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