If the only thing you're interested in when you watch an action movie is guns blazing and fight scenes, then this will satisfy. There's a lot of gunfighting in this one, and Wesley Snipes definitely proves that he knows something about the martial arts. His fight scenes are well done for the most part. In general, though, the movie repeatedly insists on descending into silliness, with a story that makes very little sense, even as actions movies go.
Snipes plays John Cutter, a security expert who's just been hired to be chief of security for Atlantic International Airlines. He boards a flight for Los Angeles not knowing that the FBI is transporting a vicious terrorist on the same flight. The opening scenes involving terrorist Charles Rane (Bruce Payne) and his attempt to escape the FBI by fleeing a plastic surgeon's office, where he was apparently going to have his appearance changed, was pretty dramatic and established the nature of that character reasonably well. Unfortunately, the extended opening development of Cutter seemed unnecessary and overlong. The real problem here though (and where the movie lost all credibility with me), has to do with Rane's plan for hijacking the flight. Sly Delvecchio (Tom Sizemore) - who's one of the bigwigs with the airline - keeps complaining that the FBI didn't tell the airline that they'd use that flight to transport a dangerous criminal. But that makes sense to me. Why tip anybody off? So even the airline doesn't know that he's going to be on the plane. How, then, did Rane manage to get not just one but two of his people on board the plane - not as passengers but as crew? Either he got them hired by the airline specifically for this operation or he recruited two employees. Either way, they'd have to have known in advance that he was going to be on this particular flight and arranged to work this particular flight by bidding on it in advance, because these things are arranged by seniority. Sure, there could have been an FBI mole who tipped him off, but I doubt this decision was made weeks in advance in order to facilitate all these arrangements, and there's still the problem of getting the flight attendant and baggage handler scheduled to work this flight. A rather silly and overly convenient plot device, if you ask me.
Once this is over, there's very little of note and nothing much you remember about it. It's an action flick among action flicks - but even sillier than most, and adding nothing original to the genre. However, I did enjoy Cutter's comment to Rane - "always bet on black!" 2/10
Snipes plays John Cutter, a security expert who's just been hired to be chief of security for Atlantic International Airlines. He boards a flight for Los Angeles not knowing that the FBI is transporting a vicious terrorist on the same flight. The opening scenes involving terrorist Charles Rane (Bruce Payne) and his attempt to escape the FBI by fleeing a plastic surgeon's office, where he was apparently going to have his appearance changed, was pretty dramatic and established the nature of that character reasonably well. Unfortunately, the extended opening development of Cutter seemed unnecessary and overlong. The real problem here though (and where the movie lost all credibility with me), has to do with Rane's plan for hijacking the flight. Sly Delvecchio (Tom Sizemore) - who's one of the bigwigs with the airline - keeps complaining that the FBI didn't tell the airline that they'd use that flight to transport a dangerous criminal. But that makes sense to me. Why tip anybody off? So even the airline doesn't know that he's going to be on the plane. How, then, did Rane manage to get not just one but two of his people on board the plane - not as passengers but as crew? Either he got them hired by the airline specifically for this operation or he recruited two employees. Either way, they'd have to have known in advance that he was going to be on this particular flight and arranged to work this particular flight by bidding on it in advance, because these things are arranged by seniority. Sure, there could have been an FBI mole who tipped him off, but I doubt this decision was made weeks in advance in order to facilitate all these arrangements, and there's still the problem of getting the flight attendant and baggage handler scheduled to work this flight. A rather silly and overly convenient plot device, if you ask me.
Once this is over, there's very little of note and nothing much you remember about it. It's an action flick among action flicks - but even sillier than most, and adding nothing original to the genre. However, I did enjoy Cutter's comment to Rane - "always bet on black!" 2/10