Director: Wolfgang Petersen
Cast: Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman, Glenn Close, Wendy Crewson
Have I Seen It Before: Oh, sure.
Did I Like It: Even at the tender age of 13, I knew I was being sold a carefully crafted bill of goods. That’s probably not a great sign. At 13 you should just take a movie on its face and think that everything—especially the R-rated stuff you managed to sneak by your parents, as they were fine with violence, but squeamish in the face of sex--in a movie is just great! More, please!
The film is a rather brazen Die Hard (1988) clone, in an era where Die Hard clones proliferated at the point to define them as an epidemic. This at least has a hook beyond the same summer’s Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997). Die Hard on a… the President’s plane. Sure, let’s watch that. And the President is the one who has to re-take the plane? Bonus points, especially in a time where we had a President who—even if you supported Clinton—you couldn’t imagine taking any kind of actual active role in a situation…
Is it possible that a Jerry Goldsmith score is all I really need out of a movie? Well, that and Harrison Ford being demonstrably awake for the runtime will paper over quite a bit.
Come to think of it, have we ever had a President for which such a heroic role doesn’t seem like the height of silliness? Eisenhower? Washington? Even both of those guys feel like they’re going to be more at home in the scenes taking place in the Situation Room (which here looks more like the Roosevelt Room). Now that I think about it maybe Teddy Roosevelt could take something back from terrorists. Now there’s a movie Die Hard, but its Teddy Roosevelt.