The Most High-Octane Action Scenes In Plane, Ranked

It's not officially January until Gerard Butler brings audiences another '90s throwback action B-movie. Don't be fooled by the generic title, "Plane" is a tense, action-packed thrill ride that feels like a movie ripped from the shelves of Blockbuster Video. In the age of gigantic CGI tentpoles, we don't get movies like this often enough. /Film's own Ryan Scott sums it up in his "Plane" review: "It's not tongue-in-cheek, it's just a movie being about what it's about, and that is fun when it needs to be fun. It's tense when it needs to be tense. And damned if it doesn't work in the end."

Butler plays disgraced captain Brodie Torrance, who's piloting a near-empty New Year's Eve flight. A convicted murderer, Louis Gaspare (Mike Colter), is brought onboard with his U.S. Marshal escort, and that's just the first sign this will be a very bumpy flight. When his corporate goon boss makes Brodie take a dangerous route through a massive storm to save fuel, lightning strikes, and the plane loses power. They are forced to emergency land on the nearest island, which happens to be overrun by a separatist militia. After the crew and passengers get taken hostage, it's up to the unlikely duo of Brodie and Louis to rescue them and figure out a way off this island. "Plane" is a total blast from start to finish, taking cues from classic disaster movies and survival thrillers, with a healthy dose of reluctant hero tropes and a dash of the buddy cop genre. So let's soar through the most high-octane moments from the film. 

Attention passengers, major spoilers ahead!

Brodie and Louis track the hostages to a nearby village. Louis tells Brodie to be quiet and not use guns unless necessary. They move about like Solid Snake from "Metal Gear Solid," avoiding detection by the various militia members spread throughout. Louis sneaks up behind one bad guy and slits his throat, while Brodie attempts to choke the other out, only to have Louis finish the job quickly with his knife. They find the hostages, and Louis grabs a sledgehammer, smashes one of the guard's heads in, rounds the corner to cave in another's skull and gives him a couple more smashing hits for good measure.

Louis bringing the pain to this particular set of bad guys is quick and dirty, but also a moment that elicits genuine gasps from the audience. Until now, the violence has been a bit more restrained or off-camera. But when we see Louis slice through an unnamed baddie's neck and blood spray out, we know things are about to get messier as soon as he picks up the sledgehammer. Louis is also a bit of an enigma. We're told he murdered someone 15 years ago. He claims things aren't always what they seem, and there are hints of him seeking redemption by saving Brodie and the hostages, all while still unleashing gnarly violent attacks like this double whammy of hammer time. We know he's a badass, and for now, we're just happy he's on Brodie's side.

After narrowly escaping the militia, Brodie and his co-pilot Dele (Yoson An) make an impossible takeoff through a hail of bullets and RPGs (we'll get to that later). Once in the air, it seems like their only hope is a water landing, so they brace to be part of the world's worst splash zone, only to see land at the last minute. Brodie lands the plane with no fuel, engines, or proper steering capabilities and nearly wrecks their landing gear in the process, finally allowing the characters to breathe a sigh of relief. 

This is the perfect example of the "but wait, there's more" moment in nearly every '90s action movie. When the characters think they're out of the woods after escaping the armed-to-the-teeth militia, now they have a plane that's barely hanging on and seemingly nowhere to land. It gives the audience one last jolt of adrenaline and allows Brodie to do what he does best, fly. Brodie isn't a fighter, he's a pilot, and he's been thrown into a fish-out-of-water scenario. Still, his determination to keep his passengers safe (as he says, "My passengers, my responsibility") brings out the hero in him. His expertise and calm under extreme pressure are why he and his passengers get to see their families again. 

The trailer touts the plane "crash was only the beginning," but it sure is one helluva way to begin this action thriller. We get just enough time with Brodie, the flight attendant Bonnie (Daniella Pineda), co-pilot Dele (Yoson An), and glimpses of the passengers to be invested when everything goes south. What starts as above-average turbulence escalates to nearly ripping the plane apart. Brodie and Dele fly above the storm to 40,000 feet, only to be struck by lightning, lose power, and have 10 minutes to land somewhere before they become the world's largest falling rock. The ocean is too choppy for a safe water landing, so they make an emergency ditch effort to land on an isolated island. 

This entire sequence is shot with dizzying, nausea-inducing immediacy, but not in your standard too-many-quick-cuts way of modern action movies. The shaky camera is deliberate and puts the audience in the cockpit and main cabin with the characters as they experience every nervous flyer's worst nightmare multiplied by a thousand. In a moment sure to make passengers think twice about disobeying the "fasten seatbelts" sign, the Marshal and a flight attendant get flung so hard their necks snap, and both die instantly. And we're not claiming to be experts, but the troubleshooting Brodie and Dele go through as they attempt to keep this plane in the air seems pretty realistic. Nothing ever dips into the usual eye-roll-inducing moments of lesser "disaster" movies. Filming the crash in such a visceral way will have audiences gripping their armrests.