History YMMV / AirForceOne

* CompleteMonster: [[spoiler:[[TheMole Secret Service Agent Gibbs]] is the [[BodyguardBetrayal despicable turncoat]] who is in league with [[RenegadeRussian Russian terrorist]] Egor/Ivan Korshunov and his men, who seek to free the violent and oppressive General Ivan/Alexander Radek from a Russian prison. Gibbs starts by murdering three of his fellow agents in order to open the weapons vault onboard Air Force One, with multiple people killed as Korshunov and his men hijack it. Two other people are also executed by Korshunov as Gibbs idly stands by and plays innocent—and also watches without any response as US President James Marshall's wife and young daughter are threatened and another colleague is wounded. When freed with the other hostages, Gibbs continues [[FalseFriend pretending to be a friend]] as Marshall takes Korshunov and his men out as well—along with Radek being killed before he's released. Finally, Gibbs then murders both a paratrooper and Major Caldwell while attempting to not only escape the crashing plane, but [[DirtyCoward to also abandon Marshall]] to certain doom.]]

** After seeing what a loathsome, monstrous bastard Korshunov was (which was an absolute far cry as you can get from his actor's later Russian military character [[VideoGame/CallOfDuty Viktor Reznov]] despite sharing some similarities), its just absolutely satisfying to watch him [[spoiler:dispatched with his neck broken 3 ways to Sunday]].

** TheMole is [[Series/{{NCIS}} Agent Gibbs]]. [[spoiler:[[Series/TwentyFour And he dies on a plane during a terrorist incident]]]].

** If helping the hijacking go through to begin with didn't do it for Gibbs, murdering [[spoiler:Caldwell]] did.

* CompleteMonster: [[TheMole Secret Service Agent Gibbs]] is the [[BodyguardBetrayal despicable turncoat]] who is in league with [[RenegadeRussian Russian terrorist]] Egor/Ivan Korshunov and his men, who seek to free the violent and oppressive General Ivan/Alexander Radek from a Russian prison. Gibbs starts by murdering three of his fellow agents in order to open the weapons vault onboard Air Force One, with multiple people killed as Korshunov and his men hijack it. Two other people are also executed by Korshunov as Gibbs idly stands by and plays innocent—and also watches without any response as US President James Marshall's wife and young daughter are threatened and another colleague is wounded. When freed with the other hostages, Gibbs continues [[FalseFriend pretending to be a friend]] as [[spoiler:Marshall takes Korshunov and his men out as well—along with Radek being killed before he's released]]. Finally, Gibbs then murders both a paratrooper and [[spoiler:Major Caldwell]] while attempting to not only escape the crashing plane, but [[DirtyCoward to also abandon Marshall]] to certain doom.

** The movie was also made during the presidency of UsefulNotes/BorisYeltsin, who presided over Russia after the fall of Soviet Union. Back then, it was a source of "hope" that with the fall of the Soviet Union and the introduction of capitalism and democracy to Russia, Russia and the United States would become partners in a new global age. The first act of the movie heavily leans on how the fictional presidents of Russia and America have such a good friendship, with a joint Russia-US operation being what kicks the plot, after the arrest of a fictional Kazakh dictator. Yeltsin's successor was UsefulNotes/VladimirPutin, and to keep things quick and simple, Russia and American relations took a sharp nosedive for the worst since 2014.

** Creator/WilliamHMacy makes Major Caldwell a very likeable character, [[spoiler:causing many viewers to feel upset when he gets killed off]].

** From certain angles, it's clear that the F-15 cockpit mock-up only extends back to around the actors' shoulders as sky is visible where plane should be.

** Although the movie makes it crystal clear who we should be rooting for, not everything Korshunov says is easy to argue with. In particular, that the President's job involves ordering the deaths of others, and that he only keeps his hands relatively clean (compared to Korshunov) by delegating the act itself to others. Of course, the whole plot of the film centers on the President getting hands-on with this against Korshunov's men, in order to save his family and his staffers.

** The movie was also made during the presidency of UsefulNotes/BorisYeltsin, who presided over Russia after the fall of Soviet Union. Back then, it was a source of "hope" that the fall of the Soviet Union and with the introduction of capitalism on Russia, Russia and the United States would become partners into a new global age. The first act of the movie heavily leans on how the fictional presidents of Russia and America have such a good friendship, with a joint Russia-US operation being what kicks the plot, after the arrest of a fictional Kazakh dictator. Yeltsin's successor was UsefulNotes/VladimirPutin, and to keeps things quick and simple, Russia and American relations took a sharp nosedive to the worst since 2014.
* UnintentionallySympathetic: Some viewers feel at least a little sympathy for Radek [[spoiler:being released from prison only to end up desperately fleeing for his life while being machine gunned by faceless guards]]. The fact that we don't actually see what his crimes are helps it (though it is mentioned at the beginning that the President had been to the Red Cross camps and seen the thousands hurt under his rule).
* ValuesResonance: Kathryn Bennett is Vice President as played by Glenn Close, and no one in the film ever makes any remarks on her being a woman in this position, nor do they even question her capability if she ''were'' to become President. Fast forward to 2021, UsefulNotes/KamalaHarris finally claimed the honor of the being the first woman to become Vice President of the United States.

* HarsherInHindsight: A movie involving Creator/HarrisonFord and an airplane is this since [[https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/harrison-ford-injured-plane-crash-n318301 he was in a plane crash in March 2015.]]

* NightmareFuel: Imagine being any one of those hostages sent tumbling out of the aircraft without a parachute when one of the terrorists blows the door to the rear ramp open. The President himself just barely avoids the same fate, all while the tanker jet ''explodes just a few hundred feet above'', nearly taking his own aircraft with it.

* StrawmanHasAPoint: Although the movie makes it crystal clear who we should be rooting for, not everything Korshunov says is easy to argue with. In particular, that the President's job involves ordering the deaths of others, and that he only keeps his hands relatively clean (compared to Korshunov) by delegating the act itself to others. Of course, the whole plot of the film centers on the President getting hands-on with this against Korshunov's men, in order to save his family and his staffers.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: The premise of the movie is heavily tied to the geopolitics of the mid to late 90's. At the time, the US had no major foreign enemies, so the idea of Kazakh radicals hijacking Air Force One could be played for harmless spectacle rather than realistic horror. Additionally, dialogue makes reference to UsefulNotes/SaddamHussein being the President of Iraq (the only reference to a real-life head of state in the movie, oddly enough), instantly dating it to before the United States' invasion of the country in 2003.
** The movie was also made during the presidency of Boris Yeltsin, who ruled Russia after the fall of Soviet Union. Back then, it was a source of "hope" that the fall of the Soviet Union and with the introduction of capitalism on Russia, Russia and the United States would become partners into a new global age. The first act of the movie heavily leans on how the fictional presidents of Russia and America have such a good friendship, with a joint Russia-US operation being what kicks the plot, after the arrest of a fictional Kazakh dictator. Yeltsin's successor was Vladimir Putin, and to keeps things quick and simple, as of 2022, Russia and American relations took a sharp nosedive to the worst.

* ValuesResonance: Kathryn Bennett is Vice President as played by Glenn Close, and no one in the film ever makes any remarks on her being a woman in this position, nor do they even question her capability if she ''were'' to become President. Fast forward to 2020, and Kamala Harris finally claimed the honor of the being the first woman to become Vice President in the United States.

* CompleteMonster: [[spoiler:[[TheMole Secret Service Agent Gibbs]]]] is the [[BodyguardBetrayal despicable turncoat]] who is in league with [[RenegadeRussian Russian terrorist]] Egor/Ivan Korshunov and his men, who seek to free the violent and oppressive General Ivan/Alexander Radek from a Russian prison. [[spoiler:Gibbs]] starts by murdering three of his fellow agents in order to open the weapons vault onboard Air Force One, with multiple people killed as Korshunov and his men hijack it. Two other people are also executed by Korshunov as [[spoiler:Gibbs]] idly stands by and plays innocent—and also watches without any response as US President James Marshall's wife and young daughter are threatened and another colleague is wounded. When freed with the other hostages, [[spoiler:Gibbs]] continues [[FalseFriend pretending to be a friend]] as [[spoiler:Marshall takes Korshunov and his men out as well—along with Radek being killed before he's released]]. Finally, [[spoiler:Gibbs]] then murders both a paratrooper and [[spoiler:Major Caldwell]] while attempting to not only escape the crashing plane, but [[DirtyCoward to also abandon Marshall]] to certain doom.

** TheMole is [[spoiler:[[Series/{{NCIS}} Agent Gibbs]]. [[Series/TwentyFour And he dies on a plane during a terrorist incident]]]].

** If helping the hijacking go through to begin with didn't do it for [[spoiler:Gibbs, murdering Caldwell did.]]

** [[spoiler:The crash of the eponymous aircraft.]] The 1997 CGI looks like something out of a video game from that same year. Which is too bad because the effects so far had been fine against the night background, and only become obvious when the sun rose in the movie. Even even more ironic because most of the plane effects were done with physical model miniatures instead of using a real plane, and even one of the model makers commented on how fake it looked in comparison to everything else.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: The premise of the movie is heavily tied to the geopolitics of the mid to late 90's. Additionally, dialogue makes reference to UsefulNotes/SaddamHussein being the President of Iraq (the only reference to a real-life head of state in the movie, oddly enough), instantly dating it to before the United States' invasion of the country in 2003.

* WhatAnIdiot:
** The villains in general. What exactly did they plan to ''do'' if their plan succeeded? Retribution against them and any nation even ''suspected'' of helping them would have been dire, ''easily'' to the point of [[WorldWarIII total nuclear war]]. That may be their aim, though.
** Terrorist Sergei apparently doesn't know what explosive decompression is. To get through a locked door he jams a fire extinguisher in the handle and shoots it. ''On a plane''. This results in at least five people (including a restrained terrorist) getting sucked out of the plane (although we see three people have chutes safely opened). ''And'' the [[spoiler: President almost fell out]]. Unfortunately, Sergei isn't one of them. This also leads to the explosion of the tanker plane that was refueling Air Force One at the time, and could easily have killed EVERYONE if not for the pilot's quick thinking.

* EvilIsCool: [[BigBad Ivan Korshunov]] who [[ColbertBump to the film's audience members who are also military first-person shooter video gamers]] is basically an EvilCounterpart to his portrayer Creator/GaryOldman's later well known heroic video game character [[VideoGame/CallOfDuty Viktor Reznov]] as they are both badass Russian combatants who are AxCrazy {{Large Ham}}s, {{Blood Knight}}s and {{Sociopathic Soldier}}s, while three of his {{Mook}}s Vladimir Krasin, Andrei Kolchak and [[Creator/AndrewDivoff Boris Bazylev]] happened to be [[VideoGame/{{Battlefield 3}} Vladimir Kamarivsky]], [[VideoGame/CallOfDutyVanguard Boris Petrov]], the father of a ColdSniper ActionGirl and one of Reznov's personal mortal enemies himself and Dragovich's terrifying, AxCrazy, {{sociopath}}ic badass of a [[TheDragon lapdog]] [[VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps Lev Kravchenko]] (and both Kravchenko and Boris are "[[VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsColdWar not a patient man, Belikov. Or a compassionate one]]").

* EvilIsCool: [[BigBad Ivan Korshunov]] who [[ColbertBump to the film's audience members who are also military first-person shooter video gamers]] is basically an EvilCounterpart to his portrayer Creator/GaryOldman's later well known heroic video game character [[VideoGame/CallOfDuty Viktor Reznov]] as they are both badass Russian combatants who are AxCrazy {{Large Ham}}s, {{Blood Knight}}s and {{Sociopathic Soldier}}s, while two of his {{Mook}}s Vladimir Krasin and [[Creator/AndrewDivoff Boris Bazylev]] happened to be [[VideoGame/{{Battlefield 3}} Vladimir Kamarivsky]] and one of Reznov's personal mortal enemies himself and Dragovich's terrifying, AxCrazy, {{sociopath}}ic badass of a [[TheDragon lapdog]] [[VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps Lev Kravchenko]] (and both Kravchenko and Boris are "[[VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsColdWar not a patient man, Belikov. Or a compassionate one]]").

** After seeing what a loathsome, monstrous bastard Korshunov was, its just absolutely satisfying to watch him [[spoiler:dispatched with his neck broken 3 ways to Sunday]].

** If helping the hijacking go through to begin with didn't do it for Gibbs, [[spoiler:murdering Caldwell did.]]

** After seeing what a loathsome, monstrous bastard Korshunov was, its just absolutely satisfying to watch him dispatched with his neck broken 3 ways to Sunday.
** Same with Gibbs [[spoiler:going down with the plane]] when he helped cause all the trouble in the first place too.
* CompleteMonster: [[TheMole Secret Service Agent Gibbs]] is the [[BodyguardBetrayal despicable turncoat]] who is in league with [[RenegadeRussian Russian terrorist]] Egor/Ivan Korshunov and his men, who seek to free the violent and oppressive General Ivan/Alexander Radek from a Russian prison. Gibbs starts by murdering three of his fellow agents in order to open the weapons vault onboard Air Force One, with multiple people killed as Korshunov and his men hijack it. Two other people are also executed by Korshunov as Gibbs idly stands by and plays innocent—and also watches without any response as US President James Marshall's wife and young daughter are threatened and another colleague is wounded. When freed with the other hostages, Gibbs continues [[FalseFriend pretending to be a friend]] as Marshall takes Korshunov and his men out as well—along with Radek being killed before he's released. Finally, Gibbs then murders both a paratrooper and Major Caldwell while attempting to not only escape the crashing plane, but [[DirtyCoward to also abandon Marshall]] to certain doom.

* HarsherInHindsight: A movie involving Creator/HarrisonFord and an airplane is this since he was in a plane crash in March 2015.

* RetroactiveRecognition: [[Series/{{Lost}} Mikhail Bakunin]] is one of the hijackers.

** The villains in general. What exactly did they plan to ''do'' if their plan succeeded? Retribution against them and any nation even ''suspected'' of helping them would have been dire.

** Also Agent Gibbs. Does he really think he is going to be guarding any more presidents even if he didn't leave the president behind on a doomed plane?
*** Up to this point, no one else, besides Marshall and the Major, knew that he was the mole. He is a trusted Secret Service agent who fought against the terrorists so he could have claimed the Major shot Marshall, he shot the Major and escaped afterward.
*** Still seems unlikely anyone would believe that fully, considering how paranoid everyone would be afterwards and any investigation would focus on probable Secret Service traitors not an Air Force major. The Secret Service ultimately is responsible for safety and they would most likely have had a traitor.
*** By this point, whatever the original plan had been had long since flown OffTheRails and he was more concerned with surviving today than he was in covering for himself tomorrow. He needs to be alive to worry about being found out or not.
*** Which begs the question - why did he volunteer to stay ("We stay with the president, sir!") instead of parachuting when he had the chance?
*** We have no clear information about what prompted him to turn traitor, and keep in mind that at that point the plane would have retained access to parachutes and remained in working order; staying behind would have given Gibbs more opportunities to keep an eye on Marshall's plans, maybe tip the hijackers off if he got a chance to do so, and he could have still theoretically evacuated whenever he chose.
*** Gibbs staying behind even if not to help Korshunov and the others was to keep up the charade that he was loyal and not at all evil. Willingness to leave right away would've put the slightest suspicion on Gibbs. Also, a cut backstory would've revealed him to be former CIA who lost money during the Cold War and allied with Korshunov to spite the US.

** [[spoiler:The crash of the eponymous aircraft.]] The 1997 CGI looks like something out of a video game from that same year. Which is too bad because the effects so far had been fine against the night background, and only become obvious when the sun rose in the movie.

* OohMeAccentsSlipping: When Korshunov (Gary Oldman) tells the First Lady to "SHUT UP!", he sounds more South London than Russian.

*** Gibbs staying behind even if not to help Korshunov and the others was to keep up the charade that he was loyal and not at all evil. Willingness to leave right away would've put the slightest suspicion on Gibbs. Also, a cut backstory would've revealed him to be former CIA who lost money during the Cold War and allied with Korshunov to spite the US.