Air Force One (1997)
It is interesting how hard it is for film makers not to make the same films they or others made in the past. Director Wolfgang Petersen turns Gary Oldham into John Malkovich's character from _In the Line of Fire_, almost investing him with the same attitudes and speeches. Then he tries to make sense out of the airplane like he did in the submarine of _Das Boot_.
Then he takes the arrogance of the President's speech about terrorists should be very afraid, and turns it on him by making him choose between his family and political suicide. And that's only in the previews!!!
Of course, there is moral cause injected...Oldham tells one of the people he holds hostage that he will not take moral instruction from a nation that killed 100,000 Iraqis, but it passes like no one really meant it anyway. Movies like this like having moral clauses in them, but they must be passed over quickly before the audience starts having real moral qualms themselves about all the killing (the President gets to kill with moral fervor).
But the formula is lifted from the Arnold /John Maclain/ Steven Seagal movies. They are put in an alien environment by some form of treachery, then assorted atrocities are committed, they begin to make inroads while passing through all sorts of troubles, are captured, and by some superhuman effort of will (which of course means shedding their own blood) they manage to free themselves and then reverse the situation. The openings come from James Bond movies, as do the endings, replete with memorable statements as the killers are dispatched.
What is corrupt about this is that he gets to make two right choices which are contrary to one another (notice I didn't say contradictory), and get away with it. That is what the audience loves eventually. Then when the trouble is dispatched Lotte Lenya (or someone else) comes back to kill Bond, while some other fatal threat is hanging over them.
Ford is our Gary Cooper or late Bob Mitchum these days. It is about his presence, not about his acting. He said on a talk show, he didn't want to change his clothes for the film, that they should show the changing circumstances. I think that was the right choice, since they change more than he does in the movie. What ever happened to the Ford of _The Mosquito Coast_ or _Presumed Innocent_ or even _A Clear and Present Danger_?
And the explosions? They write plots with explosions in them so dark screens can go yellow and orange. Who says abstract art is not pop art?
It is all annoyingly pleasant. It is all about money and technique, and built for an audience for whom moral questions are problems occasionally for politics and business, but never the popular art. But it does have its moments, such as when Ford has to read the instructional manual in order to make a cel phone call. It might one of the few moments of truth in the movies recently.
Gerald E. Forshey
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