PASSENGER 57
A film review by Robert Dorsett
Copyright 1992 Robert Dorsett
Minor critical spoilers follow...
PASSENGER 57 stars Wesley Snipes as John Cutter, a counter-terrorism expert. After his wife is tragically killed in a domestic crime incident he was involved in, and after blaming himself, he resigns from the FBI (or Secret Service; not quite clear which), and hires himself out as a security consultant "training night watchmen and airline personnel," which everyone he knows considers a "loser" job; everyone tries to convince him to go back to his old job. Whatever.
What's pertinent to the story is that the hero ends up on an L-1011, which just so happens to be transporting a very dangerous terrorist captive, by the name of Charles Rame. Unfortunately, Rame's gang is also on board the airplane, and *aren't* prisoners: the FBI agents accompanying him are killed, and he hijacks the airplane. Cutter jumps right into the situation, and starts fighting the terrorists almost instantly. They underestimate him ("just airline security"), not knowing his past, and allow him to secure the lower galley.
So, how good's the movie? Really neat premise, but it just doesn't work. Just no sense of tension or action; the plot's too methodical. Only about a third of the movie occurs in the air.
One has the drift of things to come when, after a fairly exciting opening scene, they end it with a water truck going out of control, the bottles falling down and bursting, disorienting the villain, and allowing him to be captured. Ooooooookay.
The movie also suffers from continuity problems. The captain's killed early on (no spoiler, it's in the trailer), yet, later on, in a landing scene, we see hands on the throttle from the *left*. Hmm. Next time we see the F/O, he's still in the right seat; the captain's seat (and his window) are covered in blood. Hmm.
The terrorists kill the security guards. First one, then the other. Well, when the first one's getting offed, why does the other have blood running down his head? Then they switch camera angles and show him getting killed, no blood. Next cut: blood down the head.
Whole bunch of stuff like this.
Some things don't make sense. Such as:
- Why is it so important, at one point, to jump out the moving airplane? Why not wait until it stops and step out? The characters involved had no reason to suppose they were in immediate danger.
- The blown-out window near the end. Okay, the air goes out. But why does the door on the other side buckle and get blown out? What pressure differential can exist that would be any worse than a routine flight? Metal fatigue? Is the owner of the airline supposed to be Frank Lorenzo? Why does it take so *incredibly* long for the airplane to depressurize, and why don't the combatants all pass out, or at least slow down because of hypoxia?
- This sounds bloodthirsty, but I'm amazed Snipes didn't kill more people. Starts out against an unknown number of terrorists, and he's prancing around in these prolonged fight scenes, taking *prisoners*... Hmm...
- The ground scenes are remarkably absurd. One gets no sense of the FBI people being in any way professionals: it's a filmmaker's concept: "What would *I* do if..." And one gets the resulting impression of amateurism and incompetence. Except for SNIPES, of course. And the way he re-boards the airplane is absurd: "Commando" in reverse, if you follow my drift.
- Lastly, Cutter's background just isn't believable. Are we to believe that this highly trained operative, *with* the drop on a criminal, *isn't* going to put a bullet in the skull of some thug holding his wife hostage, regardless of whether he's hold a gun to her head? Hmmmm... Perhaps he's supposed to be an anti-hero...
I stuck around for the credits, wondering who their consultants were. Nope. No FBI consultants, nobody from Lockheed, no FAA, no nuttin'. Yet another frequent flyer's vision of aviation and terrorism.
Acting? Snipes isn't convincing in this role. People call Seagal a wooden actor; this guy's wooden. Seagal's an Olivier next to Snipes. The BAD guy, played by Bruce Payne, is nicely done (except for an embarrassing scene with his lawyer). Snipes just isn't up to his level of menace.
Just about the only original thing in this movie is that Cutter *doesn't* have cute one-liners, ala Swarzenegger, after violent scenes. The only relief is when the CEO of the airline comments on the intelligence of the FBI: "Brilliant. They take a dangerous, experienced hijacker to trial in an airplane. Why not a bus or train?" :-) Lots of racial "sarcasm," such as the old woman who can't tell Blacks apart, and confuses Cutter with Arsenio Hall; or the hick police from Louisiana, who treat Cutter worse than the terrorists.
Overall, this movie's very dull, which is a Bad Thing to say about adventure flicks. It's also short (under 1:25). It is *no* DIE HARD aboard an airplane, nowhere near the rush of UNDER SIEGE. If you expect this movie to be similar to those, it isn't. It's not even R material: TV-movie stuff. With such a subdued plot and violence factor, one might suspect they're aiming for a *realism* effect, but it's cartoonish, at best, a teenager's fantasy.
Rating: 0 on the [-4,+4] scale, two stars, 5/10, etc. Not a bad movie, but definitely not a good one, standard formulaic fare. Wait for it to appear on TV (uncut! :-)).
--- Robert Dorsett rdd@cactus.org ...cs.utexas.edu!cactus.org!rdd
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