"There is a legend in the underworld. For those in the know, it's called the Money Plane. Whatever you wanna wager on, the Money Plane has you covered. You want to bet on a dude fucking an alligator? Money Plane."
Money Plane is a heist action movie released in 2020. It was directed and co-written by Andrew Lawrence, who also plays a supporting role in it.
Jack Reese (Adam "Edge" Copeland) is the leader of a team of thieves trying to sort out a gambling debt he incurred years ago. After a plan to steal a painting from a museum goes wrong, the owner of his debt, Darius Emmanuel Grouch III a.k.a. "The Rumble" (Kelsey Grammer), forces him and his crew to take on a job to rob the Money Plane, an airborne criminal casino that operates in international airspace and holds a fortune in cryptocurrency and hard cash while in flight. As the heist is in progress, Jack discovers that something isn't right about the plan, but the team has no option but to press on.
The cast also includes Thomas Jane, Denise Richards, Joey Lawrence and Matthew Lawrence.
Tropes
- Affably Evil: The crew of the Money Plane are perfectly civil and professional, despite running a business that kills people for amusement.
- Caper Crew:
- Jack is The Leader of the group and does a lot of field work.
- Isabella (Katrina Norman) seems to be the muscle of the group, being the most involved in the field besides Jack, who spends most of the Money Plane heist in the cockpit.
- Trey (Patrick Lamont Jr.) is the tech-savvy team member, serving as a hacker.
- Iggy (Andrew Lawrence) is mostly seen doing heavy lifting and acting as the getaway driver during the museum heist. He takes the role as the guy on the ground during the Money Plane heist since Trey is needed on the plane.
- Jack's old friend Harry (Thomas Jane) joins the crew as a backup guy on the ground.
- The Casino: The Money Plane is a flying casino with both more standard games like Texas Hold 'Em and more illegal bets like betting on people's deaths and playing Russian Roulette.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Grouch is the CEO of some big company called RumbleCorp.
- Cowboy: J.R. Crockett (Matthew Lawrence) is an arms dealer from Texas with an exaggerated cowboy personality; he is even just credited as "The Cowboy" in the credits.
- Dead Person Impersonation: Jack's cover identity is that of a human trafficker named Monroe, who somehow did all of his work digitally, meaning nobody knows what he looks like. Except for Isabella, who killed him months ago.
- Death by Irony: J.R. Crockett dies playing Russian Roulette, having won several times in the past, right after bragging about how he can't lose.
- Defiant to the End: The last we see of Grouch, he is emptying a machine gun at a team of assassins coming at him.Grouch: Rumble time.
- Dragon Lady: One of the plane passengers, Mia Yamada, is some sort of crime lord and of East-Asian descent.
- Engineered Public Confession: Jack secretly records a conversation he has with Grouch in which he angrily talks about the heist and identifies himself by name, sending the Money Plane's people onto him.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Despite being a criminal organization, the people in charge of the Money Plane have strict rules against cheating, even killing a man on the spot when he cheated during a card game. They also make it clear that the flight attendants are off limits for passengers.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: Jack spends most of the movie with his long hair tied up in a man bun. At the end of the movie, after Grouch is dead, his debt is settled and he will have enough money to retire, he has his hair out.
- Failure Gambit: Harry's research reveals that Grouch already owned the painting he got Jack and his team to steal and apparently tipped off the museum about the plan, ensuring that they would fail.
- Faux Affably Evil: Grouch acts friendly and sophisticated, but mostly speaks in a smug, threatening tone.
- Historical Rap Sheet: One of the arms dealers on the plane, Ivan Vitali, is said to have been the one who sold Iran the materials that made them nuclear capable.
- Hypocrite: When one of the passengers, Reid, harasses Isabella, Jack, who is posing as a human trafficker, tells him off. Vitali points out how odd it is for him to take issue with it considering how many people he must have sold into sexual slavery in his line of work.
- The Infiltration: Jack and Trey go undercover as criminals on the Money Plane.
- Large Ham:
- Darius Grouch, whenever he gets loud and threatening.
- J.R. Crockett really hams it up with his cowboy personality.
- My Greatest Failure: Jack's current predicament comes from five years ago when he bet too much on a single hand and lost; he's never gambled since.
- No Name Given: The concierge (Joey Lawrence) and bookkeeper (Al Sapienza) are never named in the movie.
- One Last Job: The museum heist was supposed to be this for Jack, meant to pay off his debt, but when it fails the Money Plane heist becomes his last last job.
- Parental Hypocrisy: When Jack reads Robin Hood to his daughter and she asks if it's okay to steal from bad people, wanting to apply this to a situation with a friend she's been arguing with, Jack, the professional thief, instead talks her into a more peaceful solution.
- Small Name, Big Ego: When taunting Grouch, Jack points out that despite his high thoughts of himself and what a badass he supposedly is, the plane is full of criminals much more dangerous than him.
- Stress Vomit: After one too many deadly bets, Trey slips into a restroom and throws up.
- Villainous Lineage: Vitale talks proudly of coming from a family of arms dealers, his father and grandfather having also been that.
