Air Force One: Review By Daveactor7

Air force one. I would have to say this is one great popcorn flick and a decent film in cinematic aspects.

The story-the president (Harrison Ford) is on a flight back to America from Russia aboard air force one, only to have it hijacked and initiating a tense, suspenseful storyline. Not a bad storyline- the president's number one plane being hijacked. Sounds intriguing. The only problem I had with this concept though was that the storyline was weak in the background of each character. I am sure audiences would have loved to see Gary Oldman's terrorist leader background and how he came to be the cruel man he is. The president as well, what initiates the emotional conflict between him and his family? What makes him love them so much? Although these were key elements missing from the script, screenwriter Andrew Marlowe manages to keep the suspense, the thrills in the film.

The acting-Harrison Ford did good as the president and he really does well in conveying a man with such a huge status being struck with so many conflicts and he must deal with them on his own. Gary Oldman-very good as the leader of the hijacking ordeal and does well in playing a cruel character who is practically unpredictable. In nearly every scene he was in, I was unaware at what he would do next unlike other films that have villains that are obviously going to strike. The entire cast was good especially Glenn Close who portrays the vice president, deciding what to do next and taking in plans to a solution one after another. The cast do well in speeding up the movie and make it flow easy as well.

The directing-Wolfgang Petersen did good, but not great however. He managed to create a film that was not boring, but yet "boring" was about to come into the movie if it had dragged any longer. Petersen could have taken this farther and staying on a more solid, less plot filled movie because obviously handling more then one plot is not his thing.

The visuals-the cgi in this movie were decent, I felt that they could have done better especially with much better cgi based movies had come out in the early 90s (terminator 2, jurassic park) The cinematography is not much to look at as well. In many scenes, I could not find any shots or angles that symbolized or had meaning. Cinematographer Michael Ballhaus could have gone farther with the camera, especially with all the suspense enveloped in the acting and the screenplay.

The score made by Jerry Goldsmith is excellent however capturing the President's patriotism, his actions inside and outside himself. He also created suspenseful pieces in which helped to drive and either darken the mood or lighten it. Great work.

Overall, this film is good and if you are looking for a popcorn movie this would be a treat.