Executive Decision (1996)

  Sorry this is going up so late in the day.  I binge-watched the entire 13-episode run of Marvel's Daredevil on Netflix, starting Friday and going through half of Saturday.  I'll probably do a whole post tonight or tomorrow to run down all the TV I've caught up on this weekend.  But for now, let's dive into the 90's.

Analyst Dr. David Grant (Kurt Russell) is called in to the Situation Room after radical terrorists seize control of a commercial air liner.  Grant believes that the hostages are just a smokescreen for the real threat:  a chemical weapon on board that will devastate the eastern seaboard.  He convinces the Secretary of Defense (Len Cariou) to send a team of elite soldiers, led by Lt. Colonel Austin Travis (Steven Seagal), to board the plane in mid-air using technology designed by Dennis Cahill (Oliver Platt).  Grant and Cahill join the team to provide analytic and technical guidance only, but when things go wrong, both men find themselves trapped in the terrorist-controlled 747.  Their only ally on the inside is a flight attendant named Jean (Halle Berry).

Oh, pre-9/11 hijack movies!  You used to be so campy and fun.  If they tried to make this movie now, it would be grossly poor taste.  But what I love most about it is the subversion of all the previous action movie tropes of the 90's.  It opens with Steven Seagal leading his team of elite, tastefully ethnically diverse soldiers and positions him to be the hero.  When we are introduced to Grant, he is a bookworm trying to conquer his fear of flying.  Grant and Travis's characters have a negative history, so Travis should have been the one to shoot down all of Grant's ideas and generally be the negative voice.  Instead, both men are shown to have professional integrity, able to put aside a previous bad call in order to put the mission first.  Then, when you think it's going to turn into a buddy movie about Grant and Travis working together, Travis drops out and Russell's character has to carry the whole rest of the movie.  It was brilliant and I am shocked that it was not a Tom Clancy story.  It was more of a Jack Ryan story than Jack Ryan.