Harrison Ford Movie:

Editorial Review:
You know that old dramatic principle of suspension of disbelief? You'll have to rely on it for this box-office smash, but you won't be disappointed. Harrison Ford plays a U.S. president who single-handedly employs his rigid antiterrorism policy when a band of Russian thugs hatch a mid-flight takeover of Air Force One. Gary Oldman, who chews the scenery as the lead terrorist, will shoot a hostage at the slightest provocation. Glenn Close plays the sternly pragmatic vice president who negotiates with Oldman from her Washington seat of power. If you can believe that the aircraft's pressurized cabin can sustain hundreds of rounds of machine-gun fire, you'll buy anything in this entertaining potboiler, especially thanks to Ford's stalwart heroics and some nifty special effects. Director Wolfgang Petersen (Das Boot) keeps the action moving so fast you won't be sweating the details. Don't forget your parachute! --Jeff Shannon

Air Force One Reviews:
Silly thriller
2009-11-25 - Typical Hollywood thriller ... The plot is ridiculously predictable and some action scenes just don't make any sense. Yawwwnnn

Fairly typical techno-thriller one of Ford's better late efforts
2009-10-26 - I'll be honest: I didn't expect a whole lot out of this save-the-president film; I'm not an enormous Harrison Ford fan, and the plot seemed really hackneyed. Why'd I watch it, then? I guess I was in the mood for this kind of techno-thriller, in which the President's plane is hijacked by terrorists, and our middle-aged President (Ford) who was formerly a Vietnam combat pilot gets to play hero and almost single-handedly take out the Russian bad guys headed up by nasty psycho Gary Oldman and prevent them from returning evil commie Jurgen Prochnow back to power in Kazakhstan. Complications include the President's wife and daughter being on board, and disagreements between principal cabinet members (chiefly Glenn Close as the VP and Dean Stockwell as the Secretary of Defense) on how best to handle the situation on the ground; the latter element never builds up to anything convincingly suspenseful.

Like a great many of these kinds of films, AIR FORCE ONE started out pretty well and went downhill both in believability and interest in the second half, but it never fell apart completely despite one really annoying plot hole that apparently the producers, screenwriter Andrew W. Marlowe and/or director Wolfgang Petersen thought we'd be too stupid to think about: namely that there's a spy on board in the form of a Secret Service agent, we know about him and the people on the ground know about him, but very little if any effort is made to clue the President in about him - and he basically gets ignored by both the terrorists and everyone else until the very end. And his motives are never mentioned at all - he just turns rogue because, uh, he thought it would be fun, perhaps? Not good enough, sorry.

Still, this was more lively and intelligent than it could have been; Ford is OK and the rest of the cast is game enough, if not quite enthusiastic except for the always manic Oldman - who is playing basically the same role he's played a dozen times now. Worth a watch if you like these sorts of things; better than DIE HARD 2 or 4, EXECUTIVE DECISION, or the UNDER SIEGE films, I'd say, to name some movies with comparable plots from the era. Petersen is never IMO less than a competent director, and he keeps things moving along OK. The ra-ra patriotic Jerry Goldsmith score got old and pretty overbearing after a half hour.

A time waster, then, but a reasonably enjoyable one. The standard DVD doesn't have too much in the way of extras, nothing really of substance besides the director's commentary, which I haven't listened to.

great action movie
2009-09-12 - Great transfer onto BD. Harrison Ford great job and how can you go wrong with gary oldman as the bad guy.

President Wooden Head
2009-08-16 - I saw this movie in the theater and, although I thougth it was stupid, I enjoyed it. I just watched the last 1/4 of it on TV just now. STUPID movie. Harrison Ford looks like he's drugged or constipated throughout the entire movie. He's gotten in the bad habit of narrowing his range of emotions from his usual A-to-B to an annoying A.

SPOILER (although, how can you spoil this piece of rotten fruit any more?)

William Macy plays a pilot. At the end of the movie, the president takes the helm of the crippled plane while Macy sits beside him in the co-pilot's seat. Shouldn't that have been the other way around?

Glenn Close plays an embarrasingly weak vice president.


Popcorn Action/Adventure Flies High in Air Force One!
2009-08-15 -
Back in the summer of 1997 there was a hit movie called Air Force One, with Harrison Ford Clear and Present Danger (Special Collector's Edition) as the President who formulated a plan to stop a terrorist dictator in Kazakhstan. Praised by the Russians, the President declares he will not back down or negotiate with terrorists.

Those words would haunt him.

A group of Russian reporters (a.k.a. the terrorists from Kazakhstan) get on board and with the help of a mole get into a gunfight on Air Force One.

Now I don't know how realistic any of this really is: bullets flying all over the plane and the plane apparently puncture-proof. Or people jumping from a plane at 15000 feet without too much fear like they grew up jumping out of planes.

Even so, with its faults, it was exciting entertainment. Ford did get beat up a bit and as the body count rose and the hostages were getting eliminated, you began to wonder if he would ever prevail.

The movie slowed considerably after the last terrorist got strangled by the President. Yuk. The whole "plane is falling apart" and "I'll go instead of you" got kinda old fast. And Dean Stockwell Quantum Leap - The Complete First Season as the overacting, hyperventilating Secretary of Defense who tried to get the President's orders cancelled, I think was a distraction to the excitement on the plane. Glenn Close Fatal Attraction (Special Collector's Edition) played her role as vice-president well, though a bit of a shallow character.

Gary Oldman Bram Stoker's Dracula (Collector's Edition) played a pretty psychotic terrorist, foreshadowing later interesting roles as in Dracula or in that Batman flick!

From a 9/11 perspective, it's like we saw September 2001 coming -- it was clear in this and other similar terrorist films of the 90s -- life imitates art it seems.

Great popcorn entertainment for sure, if a bit slow and predictable.

Other Ford Adventures:

The Fugitive
Clear and Present Danger (Special Collector's Edition)
Indiana Jones - The Complete Adventure Collection (Raiders of the Lost Ark/ Temple of Doom/ Last Crusade/ Kingdom of the Crystal Skull)
Star Wars Trilogy DVD with Exclusive Best Buy Tin (original theatrical releases) - Widescreen