Air Force One

The premise makes “Air Force One” sound like the most jingoistic of “Die Hard” wannabees. While it’s true that the latest American Presidents don't resemble anything close to the protagonist of this movie, the United States’ role as the head of the government and his importance to the country is well used throughout the film - particularly at the end.

U. S. President James Marshall (Harrison Ford) is on Air Force One when terrorists hijack the plane. In the ensuing scuffle, his family is taken hostage and the escape vessel is launched. Undeterred, Egor Korshunov (Gary Oldman) begins making his demands. What the terrorists don’t know is that the President is still on board.

Early in the film, it’s established that President Marshall served in the military. We know he’s got the skills necessary to accurately handle a gun and take down assailants. We see that he is frustrated by the country’s current policy of “waiting to see how this will impact us”. He’s established as a man of action and his family is in danger, which explains why he decides to stay aboard Air Force One. We’ve got the setup and the explanation. Now what? Well, that’s the thing. There’s a lot of tension from these subtle changes to the "Die Hard" formula. While President Marshall is the best hope the hostages have, by staying on the plane, he’s given the terrorists EXACTLY what they want. Now, there's no escape. In any film in which the lone hero must carefully navigate their limited surroundings and take down the assailants one at a time, their identity remaining secret is key. If Hans Gruber finds out who Holly Gennero-McClane is, it’s all over kind of thing. In "Air Force One" the man who could be coerced is the President. The stakes don't get much higher.

Pitted against the ever-charming and charismatic Harrison Ford, we’ve got Gary Oldman, who plays a fantastic villain. Egor Korshunov is a ruthless extremist but he’s not a loon. His ideologies are all twisted but once in a while, he makes a fair point. Just enough that if you were having a conversation with him, he would stop you dead in your tracks and force you to carefully contemplate what you’d say next. The fact that he feels like a real person - he cares for his men, he has a selfless (though morally wrong) goal, he perfectly understands what he is doing and what will happen to him - makes him even more despicable than if he were a cartoon. He’s a great bad guy you love to hate and you can’t wait to see what will happen when he and the President finally face off.

Written by Andrew W. Marlowe, “Air Force One” makes great use of its setting. The plane is big enough for people to sneak around it and has several unique features - defenses, specs, that sort of thing - that eventually come up. The film constantly finds new ways to raise the stakes, to maintain the tension, give you that sigh of relief you were asking for, and then catch you off-guard with a detail you’d forgotten about, at which point the cycle repeats itself.

So "Air Force One" indulges in several clichés of the genre and ultimately proves to be pure escapism. Is that really so wrong when the 2-hour running time flies by like nothing? A more substantial criticism would be to point out some of the dated special effects but they were good for the time so that feels unfair. Wolfgang Petersen is a great director who knows how to wring the sweat from his audience. That's what really matters.

I'm going to risk embarrassing myself and say that "Air Force One" features the second-greatest fictional U. S. President of all time - the greatest being President Thomas Whitmore from “Independence Day”. If that's not enough to entice you, the film offers a terrific villain and loads of tension. This would be a great pick to sit down and watch with your dad. (On DVD, January 2, 2022)