Air Force One

Exciting? Certainly. Preposterous? Absolutely. But will you enjoy Harrison Ford as the president of the United States, personally karate-fighting and machine-gunning an array of sneering terrorists who have seized his airplane? If you are a good American, you will.

In ‘Air Force One’, a 1997 action thriller, a band of evil Russian separatists takes over the president’s very special airplane with the help of a treacherous Secret Service agent – including the president and his family.. (If the filmmakers had just waited a few years, they could have just used standard-issue Russians, who have once again assumed their historical role in American cultural life as villains, but this was a brief period when we were all pals.)

Unfortunately they did not reckon with President James Marshall, an almost comically capable executive, who can fly jets, speak fluent Russian and is a master of hand-to-hand combat. So he spends most of the movie sneaking around the plane picking the bad guys off one by one, which – you will not be surprised to learn – culminates in a spectacular finale (with some of the most dogshit CGI you’ve ever seen, as crashing a real 747 was not in the budget.)

Hemal felt that ‘Air Force One’ was a terrific movie – tense, exciting and fun. Brian felt the same, but did note that it was incredibly silly. But if you’ve a Sunday evening to spare and a plateful of pork chops to enjoy, this is the movie for you.