**Air Force One** Reviewed by Jeff Walters
Unlike L.A. Confidential - this movie made an absolute TON of money at the box office. This in itself was very surprising as I've yet to hear anyone but my brother talk about this movie with any great enthusiasm. Airforce One is your standard stock Hollywood Blockbuster....which was disappointing. I did enjoy it to a certain degree as I'm a big Harrison Ford fan, but it just wasn't anything special.
This movie suffers from something that a lot of movies in 1998 have in that in tries to cram too many things into it. Some might say that it is to keep the pace of the film going, but it just got a bit tiresome and the movie felt a lot longer than two hours. It definitely followed the rule of 'more explosions is better'. Unlike a lot of FX movies this year though, Air Force One has a bit of substance to it. The plot, while not so original, is handled more intelligently than many movies of this genre.
Harrison does, as usual, a great job as the lead. Even playing the U.S. President he portrays his typical down to earth/ordinary man character. You did have to 'suspend your disbelief' numerous times during the movie though when the 50+ year old President is duking it out with 25 year old trained terrorists and always coming out without a bruise. My kingdom for a hero who ends up with a black eye!
Gary Oldman did a terrific job as the head terrorist, but the character he was given to work with was really no different to those seen in many other movies of this type. I was not terribly impressed by Glenn Close, but that was mainly because of the character she played. She is made out to be one of the heroes at the end for not signing the motion to take away the President's powers, even though his judgement was clouded. If Harrison hadn't 'saved the day' in the end she would have been responsible for allowing the release of a homicidal madman responsible for 10 000's of deaths in return for the half-dozen people left on the plane at that stage. I personally did not see her decision as something to cheer about no matter what happened at the end.
The highlights? For me the best part was the initial taking of the plane. It was so quick and 'full-on' that it was genuinely startling even though you knew it was coming. The race to get the President into the escape pod was one of the most exciting sequences I've seen in a movie this year. The special effects were much better than I expected, with the exception of the final crash scene which was more than slightly unconvincing.
One of the real faults of this movie was that some important things integral to the plot were left unexplained. Chief among these is the traitor inside the Secret Service detail. Why, after the plane was taken, did he remain with the captives? Why did he wait until the end when all his terrorist comrades were dead before pulling a gun on the President? This made no sense at all.
Looking back, this was an enjoyable movie held together by Ford's typically charismatic performance and some nice FX and action sequences. But as a whole it was not something to write home about. I felt Executive Decision (another plane hijack movie starring Kurt Russell) was a much better movie. Less special effects than this movie, but the suspense was built up extremely well towards the conclusion. Air Force One is one of the better "Die Hard in a {insert location here}" clones, but a clone is what it was. Nothing new here...
3 out of 5 stars
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