AIR FORCE ONE DOWN - Mark Reviews Movies

Air Force One Down, Paramount Global Content Distribution

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Review by Mark Dujsik | February 8, 2024

There's probably a fun movie to be made out of the idea behind Air Force One Down (In fact, one could argue that a few fun movies—including the specific two from which this title seems to have been concocted to remind us of—have been made from similar ideas). That's not to wholly dismiss director James Bamford's made-on-a-budget action thriller, though. It is fun at times, which is a lot more than can be said of other movies of its ilk.

In this one, a rookie Secret Service agent named Allison Miles (Katherine McNamara) finds herself aboard Air Force One for the first time, and as bad luck would have, it's just in time for a paramilitary group from a fictional Eastern European country to hijack the President's plane. Yes, screenwriter Steven Paul has basically taken this premise, albeit without the focus on a Secret Service agent, from a more famous film, but he's smart—or legally aware—enough to put a stop to that plot thread before it starts looking like an overt copy.

Let's get some of the obvious stuff out of the way first. Yes, the movie is messy on many levels, whether that be characters introducing themselves in dialogue, even after some text on screen tells us exactly who they are and what position they have. Yes, the production is cheap, from a soldier tracking Air Force One on a monitor that makes it look like he's playing a video game from the early 1980s (also making it appear as if the plane is traveling faster than the speed of sound) to a climax that takes place in that favorite of low-budget movie locales—an abandoned factory.

Yes, the dialogue is on-the-nose, repetitive, and filled with clichés, and obviously, not a bit of the plot makes a lick of sense if one stops to think about it for even a moment. If Bamford had toyed around these shortcomings and embraced some of the sillier elements, it might have worked. After all, the quality of a movie isn't dependent on how much it cost to make. All that matters, of course, is how the filmmakers use what they have.

This one, though, is aware of that in particular ways, which ultimately makes it more disappointing than annoying or, worse, boring. For one thing, it has McNamara in the lead role, and she brings such a tough and no-nonsense attitude, accompanied by a breathy sincerity to her line readings, that much of the enjoyment provided by the movie is watching how effortlessly she commands the material. That's especially true when her Miles gets into some skillfully choreographed fights and shootouts with a seemingly endless number of bad guys.

The plot, well, is little more than what's already been established by now. Miles is recruited by her uncle Sam (Anthony Michael Hall), and yeah, uncle Sam wants to take her service for Uncle Sam to the next level. Despite not being a fan of President Dallas Edwards (Ian Bohen, who's a bit too stodgy for the bickering and self-amused power-flexing that eventually come), Miles will do anything to protect the man.

She gets that chance when a rogue general (played by Rade Serbedzija) from that fake country orchestrates the violent takeover of Air Force One. It all has to do with some oil deal between the United States and the phony nation, and it's a bit strange how the material takes the politics so seriously but doesn't seem too concerned with the surprisingly high number of innocent dead bodies that are left in the terrorists' wake (The movie has an uncomfortable cruelty streak that goes a bit further than just establishing how terrible the bad guys are, including a lengthy rape threat—which is at least intercut with scenes showing us that's definitely not going to happen).

The Air Force One set is convincing enough, as Miles and Sam, the last two agents alive or able to do anything, navigate the narrow corridors, take out stray hijackers, and attempt to save both the hostages and Edwards. Soon enough, it's only the rookie and the President left, fending for themselves, not on the plane, but in hostile territory in the countryside and the villainous general's compound.

Bamford approaches the inherently ridiculous material with a bit too much severity, but even that tone can't hinder a couple of engaging action sequences. The standouts include a brutal knife fight in the President's plane cabin, but there's an extended scene of Miles improvising her way through the hallways of the bad guy's headquarters that's pretty inspired in its staging, minimal editing, and camera movement. It delivers more than we might expect, considering much of what surrounds the sequence.

Air Force One Down isn't a "good" movie by any measure, but it has its moments. Those add up to something, even if the whole of the movie unfortunately doesn't.

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