"Airline Disaster"- Zach's Take

I'll be blunt: this film is a disaster. Incredibly hammy overacting, bland, murky cinematography, and a script that would make the Epic Movie guys cry "hack!"

But I kind of enjoyed it.

All of those terrible pieces coalesce to form an atrocious film that actually almost feels intentional. I mean, this is a film produced by Asylum, the shady characters who intentionally release blockbuster rip-off films to trick the blind, elderly, and the stupid. So there's no doubt in my mind that what they're doing here is purely to turn a quick profit. Not to get all Armond White on everybody but again, that sort of crass, cynical attitude really adds to the proceedings. It's enjoyably on a meta level, in a sort of people-actually-pay-for-this way. I'm not saying it has any deeper meaning, or reveals anything interesting. It's humorous in the same way that the Coen brothers find killing off their characters funny.

The basic story of Airline Disaster concerns the hijacking of a plane by the Aryan Brotherhood, in order to *spoiler alert:* steal money. Gasp! You see, we're lead to believe that the Aryan Brotherhood is doing this for ideological purposes and to free their imprisoned skinhead brethren. So essentially, the writers stole the twist from Die Hard and decided to execute it extremely poorly.

Speaking of Die Hard, remember when John McClane took essentially no initiative and stayed hobbled away in the basement until the third act? Oh wait, that's right. That's this movie. Only John McClane turned into some girl. And instead of a basement, she hangs out in the cargo of the plane for the majority of the film. Granted, at the end, she does finally get to kick some ass and smash some faces, but by that point, the character is so far gone. However, I must reiterate: this ineptitude only adds to the enjoyment of the film. It's like watching a train wreck or Natalie Portman's goofy laugh at the Golden Globes: you can't help but sit, stare, and be uncomfortable at the mess in front of you.

The whole thing plays out like one long comedy sketch or an episode of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. I'll put it this way, there's more than one scene where the plane narrowly avoids crashing in to Flynt, Michigan Washington, DC. It's an obvious attempt by the director to drag out the runtime. I'd say if all but one of the "near-miss" scenes were omitted from the film, the total length of the film would approach 50 minutes. Maybe. But, since those scenes were left in, we get nearly 40 minutes of truly terrible CG, shouting, and, oh yeah, what's that word for the opposite of tension? I don't know, un-tension? Boredom's not really the right word, because the scenes aren't technically boring, they're funny. I guess that's an achievement, right?

Goofy, derivative, and stupidly fun, Airline Disaster is a good time for all fans of schlocky cinema. It ain't no Silent Night, Deadly Night, but it'll do.