Mike Colter and Gerald Butler star in the new action/thriller Plane and deliver a fun and entertaining theater experience.
Pilot Brodie Torrance (Gerald Butler) saves passengers from a lightning strike by making a risky landing on a war-torn island — only to find that surviving the crash landing was just the beginning. When dangerous rebels take most of the passengers hostage, the only person Torrance can count on for help is Louis Gaspare (Mike Colter), an accused murderer who the FBI was transporting.
Plane is definitely constructed out of familiar elements, even though there are still a few surprises thrown in it’s nothing groundbreaking or original. However, the film still manages to fly above its familiarity by making most of its cast and inherently tension-rich premise.
Gerald Butler delivers another great performance as the guy all guys want to be and just always seems cool even after the craziness that’s going on around him, whether it makes sense or not. Mike Colter is one of my favorite actors and watching him in this film really makes me miss his performance as Luke Cage.
Director Jean-Francios Richet wisely paces the film in a way that the characters have ample time to breathe and take in what has happened in between all the chaos. He accomplishes this with lengthy shots to display the emotion his characters should be feeling. And because we see how believable it is, we feel it too.
Richet uses almost exclusively handheld camerawork in this film, which does help with the chaotic sequences to help elevate the unease, but it also hinders the film when we should be seeing the outcome of the fight sequences, and it’s at times obscured.
Overall, even though the plot of Plane is very predictable, and formulaic, with not much character development, I still felt the white-knuckle tension of the insane and brutal action with the added hostage situation because of the visual focus of the director who is always on the people in this movie and the fear they feel. Plane is a surprisingly more-than-functional action film that is definitely worth a trip to the theaters.
Plane is now playing in theaters.
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