There was a time long ago, before he decided against paying taxes, that Wesley Snipes was one of the biggest action stars working in films. When you see an actor like that suddenly sink into the almost inescapable realm of direct-to-video films, you cannot help but feel a little sad. Wesley Snipes is a better actor than many give him credit for. Before he decided against paying his taxes, he was a big action star who wowed us in movies like “New Jack City” and the “Blade” movies among others. But in between all that, he starred in some crap that he usually proved to be the most watchable thing in. “Passenger 57” is one of those movies. It is by no means great, but it is certainly never boring to say the least.
Wesley Snipes stars as John Cutter, a security specialist for an airline corporation who is taking a flight to Los Angeles to take a new job. He is the kind of character you might see in Sylvester Stallone movies like “Cliffhanger;” a man who has suffered a terrible tragedy and is now heading on to the road of redemption. Cutter watched his wife get shot to death in front of him during a convenience store robbery, so you can understand why he doesn’t smile a lot. Along with him on the plane is “flight attendant” (not stewardess) Marti Slayton, played by Alex Datcher. John just got through a training session with her where he chewed her out for improvising a move where she succeeded in disarming a terrorist. Now Cutter is trying to make it up to her, but she is not making it easy for him. Ironically, the thing that Cutter chewed Marti about becomes their only option for survival.
Unbeknownst to John Cutter, aboard the plane is terrorist Charles Rane (Bruce Payne) who is being shipped under the guard of the FBI to await trial where he will most certainly be found guilty. Bruce plays the villain of the piece with a seething glare that you can find in any Stanley Kubrick film. It is a one-note performance, even if he has the excuse of feeling no pain. At the same time, he does create a threatening enough presence as a villain that has us desperately wanting him to experience the most intense pain humanly possible.
This brings me to one of the key idiotic moves of this film. Charles Rane is responsible for all of these terrorist acts of destruction, many of them involving airplane explosions. So of course, the FBI has the bright idea of transporting him to his doom via airplane. Not by car, train, or even in a cage or some contraption that they would use for Hannibal Lecter. Of course, if they didn’t take him on a plane, there would be no movie. I doubt that it would have been anywhere as exciting to see Mr. Rane hijack a 1970’s Pinto…Of course, that would have made for some interesting fight scenes between him and Wesley Snipes.
Some movies have gaping holes in plot logic that don’t bother me as much because I don’t always realize they’re there while I am watching a movie. But when you have plot holes that one of those dinosaurs from “Jurassic Park” can walk through, it’s kind of hard to not notice it. “Passenger 57” is full of them, and they leave you scratching your head constantly. We’ve already gone over transporting an airline hijacker by airplane. But how does the terrorist manage to get on board after being taken off by the police? He has some guy shooting the officers taking him back on board, but how did he get all the way out there? Did the FBI even bother checking the backgrounds of the flight crew and the passengers? You can see it in the eyes of some of those who turn out to be Rane’s henchmen. But then again, looks can be deceiving. And is it really possible for Wesley Snipes to get inside an airplane by sneaking up through the landing gear while the plane is taking off and not get crushed or blown away?
To a certain extent, it almost shouldn’t matter if the movie is entertaining enough. But if these logic loopholes give you a big enough headache, like being in the front row and staring right up at a movie like “JFK,” then it does. You can only be allowed to insult the intelligence of the audience so much before they get right back in your face.
The other really big problem with the movie is that the majority of the acting in this movie is god awful. Granted, Wesley Snipes is always fun to watch, and I even have some good things to say about Elizabeth Hurley as well (although it may have more to do with the fact that she is playing a terrorist). But the other actors in various roles all speak as if their feet are nailed into the floor, and they emote more than they act. This is especially evident on the ground when Snipes is confronted by a bunch of hillbilly cops that are beyond clichéd and clearly racist. How rare it is that you see that much bad acting in a movie that is released theatrically. You expect that more from a direct to DVD movie. Some movies don’t make it to the big screen for some very good reasons.
Then again, you do have Tom Sizemore here as Snipes’ friend of sorts, Sly Delvecchio. Even if he was on drugs while acting in this movie, he is never ever boring, and he raises the acting ever so slightly for the rest of the cast…But I guess that really didn’t help.
The movie was directed by Kevin Hooks who has done a lot more work these days in television than he has in feature films. But considering that he has worked on such shows as “24,” “Alias,” and “Homicide – Life On The Street” among others shows that he has a good hand for action and character than he previously ever had with a movie like this. Maybe the movie was so low budget that they didn’t have time to work on performances a bit more; to make it seem a little more real and not have it just feel like a movie.
In the end, maybe it really doesn’t matter too much. But that really depends on who you ask. I can’t quite say that I hated “Passenger 57,” but I certainly never got bored by it either. This was made back when we had dozens of “Die Hard” knock-offs, and this can safely be described as “Die Hard On A Plane.” If you want a better version of this kind of scenario, check out “Executive Decision” with Kurt Russell and Steven Segal which has better acting and better characters. Better yet, check out “Air Force One” which stars Harrison Ford and was directed by Wolfgang Peterson. There was a time where Wolfgang could do no wrong on an action movie.
I can’t believe Roger Ebert liked this movie more than “Air Force One.”
** out of ****
Wesley Snipes stars as John Cutter, a security specialist for an airline corporation who is taking a flight to Los Angeles to take a new job. He is the kind of character you might see in Sylvester Stallone movies like “Cliffhanger;” a man who has suffered a terrible tragedy and is now heading on to the road of redemption. Cutter watched his wife get shot to death in front of him during a convenience store robbery, so you can understand why he doesn’t smile a lot. Along with him on the plane is “flight attendant” (not stewardess) Marti Slayton, played by Alex Datcher. John just got through a training session with her where he chewed her out for improvising a move where she succeeded in disarming a terrorist. Now Cutter is trying to make it up to her, but she is not making it easy for him. Ironically, the thing that Cutter chewed Marti about becomes their only option for survival.
Unbeknownst to John Cutter, aboard the plane is terrorist Charles Rane (Bruce Payne) who is being shipped under the guard of the FBI to await trial where he will most certainly be found guilty. Bruce plays the villain of the piece with a seething glare that you can find in any Stanley Kubrick film. It is a one-note performance, even if he has the excuse of feeling no pain. At the same time, he does create a threatening enough presence as a villain that has us desperately wanting him to experience the most intense pain humanly possible.
This brings me to one of the key idiotic moves of this film. Charles Rane is responsible for all of these terrorist acts of destruction, many of them involving airplane explosions. So of course, the FBI has the bright idea of transporting him to his doom via airplane. Not by car, train, or even in a cage or some contraption that they would use for Hannibal Lecter. Of course, if they didn’t take him on a plane, there would be no movie. I doubt that it would have been anywhere as exciting to see Mr. Rane hijack a 1970’s Pinto…Of course, that would have made for some interesting fight scenes between him and Wesley Snipes.
Some movies have gaping holes in plot logic that don’t bother me as much because I don’t always realize they’re there while I am watching a movie. But when you have plot holes that one of those dinosaurs from “Jurassic Park” can walk through, it’s kind of hard to not notice it. “Passenger 57” is full of them, and they leave you scratching your head constantly. We’ve already gone over transporting an airline hijacker by airplane. But how does the terrorist manage to get on board after being taken off by the police? He has some guy shooting the officers taking him back on board, but how did he get all the way out there? Did the FBI even bother checking the backgrounds of the flight crew and the passengers? You can see it in the eyes of some of those who turn out to be Rane’s henchmen. But then again, looks can be deceiving. And is it really possible for Wesley Snipes to get inside an airplane by sneaking up through the landing gear while the plane is taking off and not get crushed or blown away?
To a certain extent, it almost shouldn’t matter if the movie is entertaining enough. But if these logic loopholes give you a big enough headache, like being in the front row and staring right up at a movie like “JFK,” then it does. You can only be allowed to insult the intelligence of the audience so much before they get right back in your face.
The other really big problem with the movie is that the majority of the acting in this movie is god awful. Granted, Wesley Snipes is always fun to watch, and I even have some good things to say about Elizabeth Hurley as well (although it may have more to do with the fact that she is playing a terrorist). But the other actors in various roles all speak as if their feet are nailed into the floor, and they emote more than they act. This is especially evident on the ground when Snipes is confronted by a bunch of hillbilly cops that are beyond clichéd and clearly racist. How rare it is that you see that much bad acting in a movie that is released theatrically. You expect that more from a direct to DVD movie. Some movies don’t make it to the big screen for some very good reasons.
Then again, you do have Tom Sizemore here as Snipes’ friend of sorts, Sly Delvecchio. Even if he was on drugs while acting in this movie, he is never ever boring, and he raises the acting ever so slightly for the rest of the cast…But I guess that really didn’t help.
The movie was directed by Kevin Hooks who has done a lot more work these days in television than he has in feature films. But considering that he has worked on such shows as “24,” “Alias,” and “Homicide – Life On The Street” among others shows that he has a good hand for action and character than he previously ever had with a movie like this. Maybe the movie was so low budget that they didn’t have time to work on performances a bit more; to make it seem a little more real and not have it just feel like a movie.
In the end, maybe it really doesn’t matter too much. But that really depends on who you ask. I can’t quite say that I hated “Passenger 57,” but I certainly never got bored by it either. This was made back when we had dozens of “Die Hard” knock-offs, and this can safely be described as “Die Hard On A Plane.” If you want a better version of this kind of scenario, check out “Executive Decision” with Kurt Russell and Steven Segal which has better acting and better characters. Better yet, check out “Air Force One” which stars Harrison Ford and was directed by Wolfgang Peterson. There was a time where Wolfgang could do no wrong on an action movie.
I can’t believe Roger Ebert liked this movie more than “Air Force One.”
** out of ****
A fun film and in retrospect one of Snipes better films.
This was still during his bankable days.
Air Force One was the best of these.
Great review.
Great review. I happen to like this film but I'm not sure how it holds up 16 years later. I do agree that AIR FORCE ONE and EXECUTIVE DECISION were better films than this one.
If John Cutter is a typical airline security specialist, we are all doomed. Does he do ANYTHING right in this movie? It's like they wanted to make a black Die Hard. They gave the black lead character a sympathetic tragic hystory, and a highly regarded reputation, but then they forgot to give him a brain! I can't even begin to list all the holes in this spastic attempt. Truly doubt that Roger Ebert watched the same movie now playing on AMC.