Plane

The day has finally come: Hollywood has allowed Gerard Butler to play a Scotsman again. He’s so giddy about it, in fact, that within the first 10 minutes of Plane – Jean-François Richet’s latest actioner – his flight captain Brodie Torrance manages to sneak in the words ​“neeps, haggis and tatties” in a conversation, followed shortly by a cheerful but firm slander of the English.

Things are all jolly until Captain Torrance’s titular plane gets trapped in a storm, with violent turbulence quickly evolving into a full-blown disaster. This being Gerard Butler, of course, obliteration is averted with seconds to spare, quickly followed by an even more haunting scenario: passengers and crew realise they are stranded on a war-torn island in the Philippines, with all communication systems burned down in the storm.

A tightly-paced action thriller, Plane competently delivers on the deliciously formulaic tropes of the genre. Yes, hunky Captain Brodie Torrence is a widowed single father trying to redeem himself with his teenage daughter. Yes, one of the few passengers on the plane is a dangerous inmate about to be let loose in the jungle. Yes, the radical militia in the Philippine island record the cruel murders of Westerners in a shabby camcorder. It is precisely this predictability that highlights the freshness of the writing, as witty quips intertwine with adrenaline-infused one-liners in a film that knows how to swiftly dodge dullness.

Balancing Butler’s peacocking central performance is a perfectly restrained Mike Colter, who cleverly unravels the mysterious past of prisoner Louis Gaspare, teasing an audience that has been aptly primed for the twists. The brewing bromance between the two men takes centre stage here, and Plane is much more concerned with the seesawing shifts within their power dynamics than introducing a one-dimensional love interest that would do nothing but dilute precious tension.

Tony Goldwyn taps onto his Scandal fame as a male Olivia Pope of sorts, cattily cutting off deep-pocketed executives who scramble to pretend to care more about saving lives than avoiding a lawsuit. The nondescript control room from where he operates offers a nifty connection to the world outside the island while remaining unintrusive – a tough balance to achieve. The final leg of the narrative triad lies with Torrance’s teenage daughter, brought in for the emotional gut punch needed for the audience to feel for the lovable protagonist.

Sure, Plane is far from groundbreaking, but with its efficient nod to the classics of the genre, Richet’s action thriller carves a compelling — and ever-entertaining — effort, the blood-pumping storm sequence one of the best-realised turbulences in recent memory. This technical expertise combined with Butler’s effortless (and often overlooked) charm firmly solidifies this sure-to-be crowd-pleasing blockbuster, and, if the rumoured sequel ever comes, it will certainly be welcome.

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