Plane follows Captain Brodie Torrance, played by Gerard Butler (300), his flight crew, and passengers as they try to stay alive long enough to be rescued after an emergency landing on a remote and hostile island.

Plane

Plane is a twin turboprop disguised as a commercial jetliner. It has all of the necessary parts to make it a thrilling action movie (some competent actors, a decent premise, and passable special effects) but it never quite reaches cruising altitude. The movie boasts some good actors who you haven’t seen in a while, like Tony Goldwyn (Ghost). Unfortunately, their roles aren’t much more than expositional tools or plot-fodder that gives the leads something to do between crashing and waiting for rescue. However, as mediocre and cliched as their characters and the writing are, these veteran actors treat the material like it’s worth a d@mn and seem happy to be there, and this helps to elevate the material far more than it deserves.

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That’s not to say that it doesn’t have its fair share of not-so-great thespians. Haleigh Hekking, who plays Butler’s character’s daughter Daniela, is out of her depth and was carved out of wood, and she’s clearly edited around at every opportunity. Be that as it may, it is her first feature film and only her second credited role in anything, so perhaps she will improve as the years go on. The same can’t be said for Oliver Trevena, who plays Maxwell Carter and is known for nothing anyone has ever heard of, only he’s been in the business for at least 12 years. Trevena’s Carter is a one-dimensional douchebag with few lines but it’s still out of reach of Trevena who recites lines like Steve Martin is feeding them to him in Roxanne.

Butler (and his character) is the highlight of Plane. He gives a proficient turn as an everyman thrust into an extraordinary situation, and, in a near jaw-dropping deviation from most modern films, this white male actor is permitted to unironically portray a man as competent, caring, and as having a realistic code of conduct and sense of honor. But what really sets Butler’s pilot apart from other modern action leads is that he’s neither a bumbling idiot who requires a 90 lbs. snarky woman who is superior to him in every way to drag him along into incidental heroship, nor is he Rambo. Instead, he’s just a man with leadership skills, a will to act, and enough competency to be dangerous.

In what was my favorite scene, Butler’s character takes a moment after all is said and done to have a brief and sincere cry. Why was this my favorite part? Because he waited until he was alone, he wasn’t a weepy snotty mess, and it was economical. Here’s a man who has been through an ordeal that few have ever experienced. He took it upon himself to lead and save a group of people under his care and, against all odds, he was successful. His brief and very manly cry was one of relief at no longer being in danger as well as pride in his accomplishment, and when it was over he sucked it up and moved on. The fact that he was still trying to hold it in when he was alone made it supremely identifiable and was a terrific payoff.

That being said, Plane is a deeply flawed movie with amateurish writing and direction and severe pacing problems that somehow make certain sections of an already trim 1h 47m movie feel like I’m still watching them a day later. The plane doesn’t leave the tarmac until ten minutes into the movie and, instead of using that time to introduce the supporting characters in any meaningful way that would help us to identify with them and care about their safety and survival, the filmmakers use that time to give us all a first-hand look at all of the juicy preflight duties that a commercial flight crew goes through. We’re treated to things like the flight crew standing and talking about the flight to come, the flight crew sitting and talking about the flight to come, checklists, and passenger boarding. My nipples are hard just thinking about it. But wait, there’s more. **SPOILERS** The plane doesn’t land on the island until 20 minutes into the film, and the incredilbly generic antagonists aren’t introduced until nearly 40% of the movie is over. What’s more, they don’t interact with Butler or his passengers until almost 50% of the movie is done. This is supposed to be an action movie, right? **END SPOILERS**

The choices made by several of the secondary characters are another significant flaw in the film, though not as big as the pacing because these seriously flawed decisions are made by supporting characters who are mostly useless. However, they make decisions that people just wouldn’t and it’s not even always to further the plot but to artificially and needlessly manufacture tension in an already incredibly tense situation, or to make the protagonist’s rescue plan possible. **SPOILERS** There’s a scene in which the antagonists have already brutally executed one of the passengers and now have the rest of them and the flight crew locked in a room. Several of the women in this group are extremely attractive. One is even a real-life model.

It is beyond the ability of any human being to suspend their disbelief to the point that they would believe that each and everyone one of these ladies wasn’t being brutalized by a horde of their evil and despotic captures. **END SPOILERS** Nonetheless, the movie needed everyone to be in one easily accessible location and so they were.

Furthermore, Mike Colter (Luke Cage), who plays convicted convict Louis Gaspare, has a wonderful presence and is a very intense and natural actor, and he does more with his nothing character than most could, but he is absolutely wasted. He serves as little more than a McGuffin that allows Butler’s character to be written as an everyman by virtue of Gaspare having the training and experience to be actively deadly, instead of reactively deadly like Butler. One is forced to wonder how fleshed out and interesting any of these characters might be if half of the movie wasn’t wasted.

All and all, while Plane is rather plain (see what I did there?), it’s also a watchable action flick (especially the second half) if you’re a couple of cans deep and don’t have anything else to do. I’d almost mark it as Worth It just for its positive portrayal of a straight white male and for paring two competent men together without hinting at a burgeoning romance, but ultimately that isn’t quite enough.

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