The difficulty in reviewing a film like Airline Disaster is that if you say it isnt very good, its almost a compliment, when in this case it really shouldnt be. Its part of the growing band of b-movies that have flopped onto DVD in recent years, which arent even trying to be good, but just want to be cheesy fun for an hour and a half (or as a cynic might say, they want to look like theyre worth your cash, even if theyre not, complete with a cover that is far more exciting than the movie). Even the cheesiness of the title is a sign for anyone thinking of watching it to set their expectations low.
Some of these b-flicks have fulfilled their desire to be entertaining nonsense, while others have been utter drivel, and a few have fallen into the so bad its good category. Airline Disaster nearly reaches the latter, but never quite makes it.
The set-up is relatively simple (although its rushed through in such ridiculously fast, badly edited fashion, youre likely to be confused by it for the first 15 minutes). The family of the US Presidents brother get kidnapped by a bunch of criminals, who then hijack a plane (on its maiden flight, no less), which not coincidentally had the Pres bro as its pilot. This sets off a major security incident, with the President (Meredith Baxter) in a bunker trying to decide whether to blow the metal bird with her brother on board out of the sky, a Secret Service Agent on the plane trying to take down the terrorists, and the aircraft itself rapidly running out of fuel. And while the terrorists say theyve gone to all this trouble to force the President to free some prisoners, they may have an ulterior motive.
While the film was obviously made on a shoestring budget, it is true that at least Airline Disaster makes decent use of the 20p they had for special effects. Other than a rather misjudged sequence of the plane descending towards a city which attempts to be 2012-style silliness, but is too closely evocative of 9/11 the action isnt bad.
The problem, as with so many of these films, is that the people behind it dont seem to realise that making a film thats just cheesy fun, doesnt mean you can get away with being lazy. The script is dreadful, and not just the dialogue. It has gaping pacing and structure issues that wouldnt have been too tough to sort out. However you get the feeling that as with so many of these b-movies, the whole production is infused with a thatll do attitude, rather than really trying to make the best of its intrinsic limitations (e.g. the low budget).
I might have been willing to forgive the screenplay some of its weaknesses, if it werent for the fact its just plain lazy, with the script riddled with errors that could have been corrected by a quick trip to Wikipedia. When you cant even be assed to do that, you really do have problems.
That said, its not completely without merits, and Airline Disaster just about distracts for its 80 minutes runtime. But as with a lot of these films, its difficult to justify spending time (and money) on this, when there are so many other, better movies out there, which are cheesy, brainless and silly, but a lot more successful overall like the aforementioned 2012. It difficult to see what the point in a film like this when an average episode of a US TV thriller is better written, more exciting and has a bigger budget. And when youre a film that doesnt even seem to be trying to outdo a mid-level instalment of NCIS, whats the point?
Overall Verdict: While not a total disaster, its mindless drivel thats so lazily written and structured that its difficult to even forgive it for passing the extremely low standards it seems to have set for itself.
Special Features:
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Reviewer: Tim Isaac