Plane is a 2023 action thriller movie directed by Jean-François Richet and starring Gerard Butler and Mike Colter.
On New Year's Eve, a passenger plane piloted by Brodie Torrance (Butler) makes an emergency landing after sustaining critical damage in a storm. It's later revealed that the island they landed on is Jolo, a remote area in the Philippines ruled by anti-government militias. The passengers are quickly taken hostage by a local militia leader, with the intent of securing ransom from the passengers' families. While a rescue team struggles to close in on the passengers' location, Brodie must now team up with convicted murderer Louis Gaspare (Colter), one of the passengers he was tasked with transporting, to save the passengers and escape the island.
No relation to Planes.
Previews: Official Trailer
, Final Trailer
This film contains examples of:
- Ace Pilot: Brodie begins the film by successfully managing to fly the plane through a vicious storm and pulling off a difficult landing in the middle of the jungle. He ends the film by managing a takeoff on a makeshift runway under heavy gunfire and bringing the plane to safety without incurring any casualties, ramming the front landing gear into Junmar in the process when he tries to shoot it down with an RPG.
- As Long as It Sounds Foreign: The film is set on the island of Jolo in the province of Sulu, within the southern Philippines and part of the Mindanao region or area, where much of the country's Muslim minority population is concentrated - in contrast to the Luzon and Visayas regions encompassing the northern and central Philippines respectively, where the Christian majority due to centuries of Spanish colonial rule is more pronounced. So the villains are supposed to be extremist Muslim Filipinos and likely part of ethnic groups who are less Hispanized compared to the rest. The latter part is reflected by the Big Bad having the noble honorific "Datu", akin to "Chief". Yet he has an uncommon but clearly Christian-derived name unique to Christian Filipino culture, since "Junmar", or sometimes "Junemar", is a nickname turned given name derived from "Juan Maria" - thus named after John and Mary - and akin to "Jejomar", from Jesus, Joseph and Mary. And he speaks Tagalog/Filipino which is from Luzon instead of a more appropriate language for the setting, with a pronounced American accent on top of that.
- Berserk Button: Gaspare does not like being photographed or filmed. The first time it happens, since he's still in custody he simply asks the offenders not to do it. The second time, he turns physically violent.
- Big Bad: Datu Junmar, the local militia leader who kidnaps the passengers and intends to hold them for ransom.
- Bland-Name Product: Trailblazer Airlines. Given the subject matter, not a surprise.
- Blown Across the Room: Anyone hit by rounds from the Barrett M82 anti-materiel rifle used by the mercenaries gets this treatment, whether they're behind a vehicle or not.
- Boom, Headshot!: Hajan is killed this way when The Cavalry rescues Brodie. Junmar does not take this well, and rallies the entire island to go after the plane as a result.
- Brave Scot: Brodie brings attention to his Scottish heritage while introducing himself to his co-pilot. When everything goes wrong, he displays great personal valor in rescuing the passengers.
- Car Fu: Brodie kills Junmar by ramming at him with the plane's landing gear. At full throttle.
- Cassandra Truth: When Brodie tries to call his superiors, the lady on the other end tells him that they have been receiving prank calls to that effect and he needs to provide his badge number, which he left behind at the crash site. However she does forward the recording of the call up the chain of command to said superiors.
- The Cavalry: Scarsdale's mercenaries show up just in time to save Brodie from being executed.
- Cavalry Betrayal: When several cars arrive at the crash site, the passengers assume it's a rescue. Unfortunately, it turns out to be violent rebels looking for hostages.
- Cellphones Are Useless: It's justified that there is no cell reception on the island so contacting help is impossible, but it edges into Idiot Ball territory when absolutely no one thinks of or knows how to get a GPS coordinate reading from their phone to pinpoint their exact location. Unlike voice calls or data, GPS signals exist nearly everywhere on Earth and can be read as long as the sky is reasonably clear, and every modern smartphone has a GPS receiver.
- Chekhov's Gun: When landing the plane in the forest, Brodie is not able to dump one of the fuel tanks due to equipment failure. Brodie and the passengers are only able to escape the island later because that tank still had fuel.
- Concealment Equals Cover: Subverted, the vehicles the rebels hide behind are no protection from the bullets fired by the Barrett M82 AMR one of the mercenaries uses.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: When Junmar arrives at the plane a second time, he's met by Gaspare and a team of Scardale's mercenaries, who easily disable their vehicles with sniper fire and then start picking off rebel after rebel, often by shooting through the very vehicles they are using for cover. This prompts one terrified rebel to audibly wonder "Who are these guys?"
- Decoy Antagonist: Much is made at the beginning of the film about Louis being extremely dangerous and violent. But other than raising his voice out of frustration a few times, Louis is never hostile towards Brodie or his fellow passengers.
- The Dragon: Hajan, Junmar's right-hand man. After his death at the hands of Scarsdale's mercenaries, all bets are off for Junmar.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Brodie surrenders to the rebels to provide a distraction so Gaspare can escape with the passengers. Fortunately, The Cavalry shows up before they can kill him.
- I Choose to Stay: Gaspare explicitly tells Brodie that he's not getting back on the plane as there's nothing for him back in the wider world, remaining on the island with a bag full of money that was brought for the hostages.
- Just Plane Wrong:
- The plane's troubles start with a lightning strike killing all avionics on board (exceedingly unlikely but conceivable) and damaging the electrical system such that only battery power remains even though the engines are still running (very unlikely but possible, and in fact this has occurred in Real Life). From this point on, the movie doesn't even try to justify the plane's behavior.
- Captain Torrance says they will lose control of the airplane after the batteries deplete, which will be in 10 minutes. On passenger aircraft where batteries are expected to power vital systems, they must be certified to operate for 30 minutes at minimum.
- On a plane like the one shown (which appears to be a variant of the MD-80 or at least similar design and age) a complete power failure would not make the plane uncontrollable. The hydraulic assist would fail, but manual linkages to the flight controls exist and both pilots working together would have the strength to fly it manually.
- The plane somehow suffers a failure of even the most basic standby instruments, which can't be explained by any kind of lightning strike or power failure.
- Despite the complete power failure, the pilots hear the Ground Proximity Warning System announcement. This gets a Lampshade Hanging from Captain Torrance but makes no sense given the other problems the plane apparently has.
- Legion of Lost Souls: Louis explicitly tells Brodie he spent several years with the French Foreign Legion before being captured and extradited back to the USA.
- Ludicrous Gibs: When Junmar gets run over by the plane's landing gear at the end.
- New Year Has Come: Brodie takes off from Singapore on New Year's Eve.
- Noodle Incident:
- It's never clarified what the circumstances are behind Gaspare's homicide. He claims to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
- Brodie briefly wonders how Gaspare got caught, but he never clarifies.
- Off with His Head!: When the passengers are captured by the rebels, one of them is beheaded by Junmar after witnessing his fleeing wife getting shot.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Brodie admits he expected Gaspare to bolt at the first opportunity. Gaspare responds that he's in handcuffs in the middle of a completely unknown jungle, and splitting off without a plan would be suicide.
- Private Military Contractors: Since the Philippine government won't go anywhere near Jolo, Scarsdale hires some mercenaries to rescue Brodie and his passengers. It's also a bit of a subversion. In most media, corporate mercs are rarely on the side of the angels, but here, Shellback's men are instrumental in saving the day. They save Brodie's life and back Brodie's crazy plan to fly the plane off the island, all while dispatching lots of rebels in the process.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: When Scarsdale questions why Brodie is flying third-tier flights when he's qualified for more, a video is shown where Brodie assaulted a passenger after the passenger punched another member of the flight crew.
- Ripped from the Headlines: Junmar and his militants are likely inspired by Abu Sayyaf, a Jihadist terrorist and pirate group operating on Jolo who kidnapped foreign tourists through the 2010s and held them for ransom.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After Hajan is shot in the head by Scarsdale's mercenaries, Junmar rallies the entire island to go after the plane.
- Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: At the start of the film, Brodie meets his first-time copilot, who's a newbie Brodie's never heard of. Despite the Genre Savvy implications of a new unknown copilot on the same flight as an international fugitive, nothing comes of it: copilot Dele is always helpful to Brodie and protective of the passengers.
- Zerg Rush: Brodie decides to relaunch his crippled plane because he knows Junmar is going to send wave after wave of soldiers at him, the passengers, and Shellback's mercenaries. Despite the obvious competence of Louis, Shellback and the mercenaries, they simply do not have the firepower to repel Junmar's army.
