a5c7b9f00b Air travel is the safest, the FAA says. But the FAA never figured the risk with Charles Rane on board. &quot;The Rane of Terror&quot; has masterminded four terrorist attacks. Soon there will be a fifth – and that&#39;s bad news for the passengers on Flight 163. But there&#39;s good news too: the man in seat 57! Wesley Snipes plays John Cutter, an undercover security operative who enters the lavatory and exits to find Rane (Bruce Payne) and his gang have taken over. Cutter&#39;s next move is clear. Do. Or be done to. John Cutter is a security expert, who is presently still mourning the death of his wife. His friend, who works for an airline, offers him the job of chief of security, which he accepts. He is then being flown to L.A. for the company&#39;s annual meeting, where he will be introducedthe new Chief of Security. But unfortunately for him, Charles Rane, a stoic and deranged terrorist, who was caught by the FBI and is also being flown to L.A. is on the plane. And Rane&#39;s people are on board, who then take over the plane but Cutter throws a monkey wrench into his plans. John Cutter (Snipes) is an airline security specialist. An expert in his field, he knows all the proper procedures should there be a terrorism incident on board an airplane. It just so happens Cutter is going to get to put his expertise to the test when he finds himself on a flight to L.A. with arch-terrorist and super-evil bad guy Charles Rane (Payne). Rane has a team of co-conspirators working with him, and he&#39;s taken everyone on the plane hostage. He thinks he&#39;s in control of the situation, but he didn&#39;t count on one thing: Cutter, of course! With the death of his beloved wife still haunting his mind, Cutter also feels especially responsible for protecting stewardess Marti Slayton (Datcher). While Cutter has compatriots on the ground suchSly Delvecchio (Sizemore), Rane has quality baddie-ess support in the form of Sabrina Ritchie (Hurley). What follows is a battle of wits and fistsCutter takes on the so-called &quot;Rane of Terror&quot;. Rane thinks he&#39;s going to pull off his crime, and he just might, except for the presence of PASSENGER 57. (Which is Snipes, not the little boy named Norman, just so we&#39;re clear).<br/><br/>As roulette instructional videos go, Passenger 57 comes up aces. Hey, don&#39;t tell us we can&#39;t mix some metaphors around here. It&#39;s &quot;Snipes on a Plane&quot;a young and dynamic Wesley entertains us all with everything an action hero should have: witty one-liners and snappy dialogue, an ability to get out of sticky situations, and some quality Snipes-Fu. That&#39;s right, all action heroes should engage in Snipes-Fu. Especially when it&#39;s mano-a-mano combat with Bruce Payne-Fu. Importantly, these are two of the main ingredients that make Passenger 57 work: a strong hero and a central, nefarious baddie. You&#39;d be surprised how often action movie-makers leave out these seemingly-essential ingredients. Thankfully, they&#39;re present and accounted for here, and it&#39;s all wrapped up in a classic-90&#39;s framework.<br/><br/>At 80 minutes, Passenger 57 is everything you want and very little of what you don&#39;t. We applaud director Kevin Hooks and the writers – more movies should be 80 minutes. You can pack in plenty of great stuff, and P-57 is certainly never boring. The soundtrack is popping&#39; bass and/or smooth jazz by turns, which you would expect when Stanley Clarke is providing the music. The opening credits montage is an assemblage of various objects, including cassette tapes, and there&#39;s almost non-stop product placement for Pepsi. Rane has a classic &quot;evil nerd&quot; in his motley crew of evildoers, and,you might expect, John Cutter is called &quot;the best&quot; at what he does. Transportation-based action was hot in the 90&#39;s,evidenced by this, Speed (1994), and others. Interestingly, Speed was released the same yearDrop Zone (1994), a movie in which they decided to push Wesley Snipes out of the plane. Apparently the Hollywood suits wanted to see what would happen.<br/><br/>Co-star Alex Datcher was no stranger to action at this point in her career; we remember her from Rage and Honor (1992) – also notablethe same yearP-57 - and Jeff Speakman classic (?) The Expert (1995). It was also nice to see Liz Hurley in an atypical role, and fan-favorite Tom Sizemore is on board (the movie, not the plane)Sly. It has been said he was named Sly because Stallone was originally supposed to play the Cutter role. Maybe John Cutter is related to Chuck Norris. This lame joke will make more sense if you click on the link. Also noteworthy, we think, is the usage of the name Charles Rane for the baddie. Fans of the great classic Rolling Thunder (1977) should remember that that is the name of William Devane&#39;s character,exemplified in the memorable tagline, &quot;Major Charles Rane is coming home to war!&quot; – presumably the writers were aware of this? Well, apparently not. We&#39;re just big Rolling Thunder fans, that&#39;s all.<br/><br/>P-57 may even have some nostalgic value to you if you remember seeing it at your local video store. Because it&#39;s fast-paced and fun, we feel it has aged quite well. If you&#39;re looking for classic 90&#39;s action in a nutshell, watch Passenger 57. People joke and call this film &quot;Fly Hard&quot;… if only it could live up to its namesake. Poorly acted, spottily directed and completely unfeasible… did you know that an airline has more hidden rooms and compartments than your typical haunted mansion? Furthermore, the terrorist villain is aboutscarymy Aunt Gail. My advice: cancel this flight and leave the gate!
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