PLANE ★★★★
15 In cinemas now
IT MAY only relate to about a quarter of the film but I’m ready to get on board with stripped-down titles like Plane. Maybe it should establish a new way of naming action movies. Shoot Out, Car Chase or Sword Fight would really boil them down to their essences. And if you don’t like planes, you’ll know to stay clear of the latest Gerard Butler vehicle.
Taking a break from the Has Fallen series and freed from awkward US accent obligations, the Paisley-born star takes flight as a rock-hard pilot who crashlands on a Filipino island overrun by gun-toting rebels.
Former RAF man Brodie Torrance (what a name!) is a commercial flyer apparently sidelined by the military for being Scottish, before his new bosses sentenced him to late-night routes out of Asia for putting an unruly passenger in a chokehold.
For now, the widower has put redemption-seeking to one side. He’s too worried about getting home in time to scoff New Year’s Eve “haggis, neeps and tatties” with his grown-up daughter.
But fate intervenes when his money-grabbing boss refuses to let him plot a route around a raging storm due to surging fuel prices. After an inevitable lightning strike fries the electrics, the plane plunges out of the clouds and Brodie thrillingly lands on a dirt track on an unknown island.
Amusingly, his passengers don’t appreciate this improbable feat. The international bunch find common cause during an extended moan about the delays and the lack of catering.
More worrying is the brooding presence of Mike Colter’s Louis Gaspare who was being extradited to the US to face a murder charge when his guard was killed in the descent.
Instantly sniffing out a fellow action man, Brodie unlocks Louis’s handcuffs so the pair can head into the jungle to find the communication tower Brodie spotted on the way down.
After a gang of trigger-happy, ransom-seeking islanders kidnap the passengers in their absence,
Brodie and Louis partner up to rescue the ingrates.
French director Jean-françois Richet keeps the action tense and reassuringly preposterous.