Plane

Plane (2023) starts with an airliner forced down by a storm onto a Philippine island controlled by armed groups. Captain Brodie Torrance has to protect his passengers, and the only real help available is a prisoner who was being transported on board. What the film does, it does honestly. The idea is simple, the running time short, the action largely practical, and the characters are not padded out with elaborate backstories. It resembles the mid budget action films of the 2000s, on purpose. Gerard Butler stars and produces. Mike Colter plays the prisoner, and the ambiguity of that character is the best thing here; whether he is guilty or wrongly convicted goes unanswered for a long time. Jean-François Richet directed, having previously made the two Mesrine films. Films with titles this bare rarely get noticed, and the choice of this one drew a fair amount of comment at the time. It runs 107 minutes. Good for: direct action, survival stories, and Gerard Butler. Less good for: the antagonists are one dimensional and the depiction of the Philippines runs on cliché. The flight sequence is the strongest part; once it is on the ground the film becomes ordinary.