2023, Jean-François Richet (Assault on Precinct 13) -- download
Brodie Torrance (Gerard Butler, Greenland) is a pilot doing the redeye out of Singapore on New Year's Eve, playing the time zones, to meet his daughter in Hawaii for the last night of the year. There aren't a lot of passengers, but he gets saddled with a prisoner delivery. They are told not to avoid the bad weather, as it will use up valuable fuel, and of course, end up in a very very bad electrical storm. One zap later, all the instrumentation is fried; they are flying blind. Just when all hope seems lost, an island appears on the horizon and Brodie is able to make a perfect landing on a dirt road surrounded by jungle. Already the hero, but unable to report where they landed, Brodie heads into the jungle to find a building he saw from the air. His co-pilot has cautioned him these islands were home to Indonesian separatists and criminals. And he is right. From exciting plane landings to gun fights with Bad Guys, the movie never wastes time on keeping people in danger. Meanwhile, back in the US a Fixer (Tony Goldwyn, Lovecraft Country) has been brought in to help find the plane and manage the event, surprisingly playing a competent, sympathetic character actually invested in finding Brodie and his passengers.
The heart bit? Brodie is the tenacious, growling hero that Butler loves to play, but they do it an unannounced way -- he just has to protect his passengers. He is assisted by the prisoner (Mike Colter, Luke Cage), a man who was on the run from a murder rap, who spent time with the French Foreign Legion. Together they go against the ruthless separatists, who want to ransom the passengers, but who are not above murdering a few to make their points. Eventually they are assisted by a merc crew sent in by the fixer, and just when things cannot get rah rah, bang bang heroic enough, Brodie has to fly them back out on a one engine and a half-tank, to a nearby airstrip on a protected island. As he takes a moment to breathe in what he, and his passengers have just been through, he collapses inward, emotion spilling forth. He was not a stalwart warrior who revels in just killing a bunch of people, just a man who did what he had to do.
Back when I was That Guy, I hated these kind of movies. They were just so unfettered from anything but the moment. The 80s and 90s were full of these on VHS, and despite First Blood being the role model for them, it being a little more heartfelt than its brethren, almost all were dumb, dumb, dumb. I wanted something a little smarter, something I could sink my teeth into. But these days, I more so need distraction. My mind is always racing, always being drawn back to the stressors of my day, week or year. Concentration is hard, so the challenging movies I loved in my heyday are not accessible. And yet, I still need something to latch onto. Sometimes, just a little heart in all the bang, bang is enough.
Side Note: I might end up calling these movies "one poster flicks" as I usually get my poster choices from IMP Awards, where you are offered a plentitude of choices. But these movies usually only have the one.
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