Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Plane 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 25, 2023

At least within the subset of travelers who are also film fans, it's kind of amazing that anyone has flown since at least The High and the Mighty and/or Airport. But people do keep flying, at least in any number of film or television properties where they quickly find out maybe their travel plans are not going to go exactly as planned. Plane is about as generically named as Airport, and in a way it really doesn't try to exhibit any outsized ambitions, though it at least tweaks the "disaster film" premise a bit by having a troubled airliner actually make a landing, albeit not in the most hospitable of locations. That plot point, which finds the survivors of the crash suddenly confronted with guerrilla type villains, was evidently a bit too close for comfort for some officials in the Philippines, who evidently took umbrage at the depiction of the island of Jolo as under the sway of paramilitary thugs. While that particular aspect at least gives the film a bit of energy, the screenplay also attempts to work in a kind of mismatched partners element courtesy of the teaming of the jet's captain, Brodie Torrance (Gerard Butler), and Louis Gaspare (Mike Colter), an international fugitive who was being extradited back to the halls of justice to face a murder charge. Suffice it to say that Torrance and Gaspare together have their own "particular set of skills" to help them overcome any number of obstacles, with the film genuinely upping the angst ante courtesy of uncertainty as to whether the so-called "and the rest" innocent bystander passengers are going to make it through the maelstrom unscathed. The fact that Torrance is white and Gaspare is black, and at least initially in handcuffs, perhaps can't help but recall The Defiant Ones, which is in its own way arguably one of the more surprising referents Plane offers.

One of the perhaps slightly unaddressed issues in all of this craziness is that it's a last minute decision by Torrance that actually puts everyone in danger, though Plane is not a film to dwell on interior psychological turmoil as much as does visceral violence once the plane passengers discover that they might very likely end up as hostages in a gambit to extract sizable ransoms. There are a number of vignettes involving some of the passengers, but one of the perhaps unexpected things about the aborted flight is that there aren't that many of them, so there are ostensibly fewer "red shirt" candidates than might typically be the case in such a story. While slightly comic interludes involving characters more accustomed to living life through their cell phones than surviving in a Philippine jungle with armed separatists surrounding them pop up, more involving content includes a hot shot former Special Ops guy named Scarsdale (Tony Goldwyn), who, back in the airline's HQ, attempts to put together a rescue operation. A sidebar featuring Torrance and his daughter Daniela (Haleigh Hekking) is arguably unnecessary and could have been dispensed with easily without any detriment to an emotional tether to the character.

The villains are led by a feral character named Datu Junmar (Evan Dane Taylor), who has a gaggle of similarly violent henchmen at his beck and call, and the film unsurprisingly has several tense cat and mouse sequences where Torrance and/or Gaspare attempt to sequester a bad guy or two to get the odds more in their favor. The film's narrative is at times both "paint by numbers", in that even with a somewhat unusual basic setup, there really aren't that many surprises (save for perhaps a shocking passenger death or two), but any qualms will probably be, well, jettisoned by adrenaline junkies since director Jean-François Richet ( Mesrine: Killer Instinct, Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1) stages some spectacularly effective action sequences, with an especially impressive set of violent confrontations between Torrance and one bad guy in particular.

Butler has a uniquely rumpled ambience for a major action star, and that slightly dissheveled look and feeling helps to give Torrance and Plane the perceived imprimatur of authenticity, despite a plot that is so completely preposterous that it seems ripe for parody, perhaps a la Triangle of Sadness. That said, Plane takes itself seriously despite the more incredible elements its story offers, and with a nonstop array of breathless action energizing the proceedings, a potentially bumpy cinematic flight actually manages to land more or less successfully.

Plane 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Note: Screenshots are sourced from the 1080 disc included in this package.

Plane is presented in 4K UHD courtesy of Lionsgate Films with a 2160p transfer in 2.39:1. The closing credits have the Arri logo, and the IMDb lists a 4K DI. This is an often very impressive looking 4K presentation, one that ups the detail ante from an already excellent 1080 version while also offering some interesting tonal highlights in a palette which is often rather "cool" and skewed toward blues, greens and teals in an otherwise tropical setting. In fact, the difference between some of the blue hued interior plane material and the brightly lit outdoor scenes once those start showing up is even more noticeable in this version courtesy of HDR and/or Dolby Vision. The 4K version also improves, if only marginally, on shadow detail in the sequence where the plane loses power and everything "goes dark", and later interior scenes in some relatively murky situations also show at least some improvement in detail levels and just general discernability in this version. This is another 4K presentation where the addition of digital grain is arguably a bit more noticeable at the increased resolution, but commendably this technique has not been slathered on, and while perhaps not "truly" cinematic, it offers a bit of texture that is especially noticeable against brighter backgrounds. Kind of interestingly, some of the jungle material in particular looks just slightly desaturated, without the fulsome suffusion that is generally apparent in this presentation.

Plane 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Plane features a nicely bombastic Dolby Atmos track that engages the surround channels virtually from the get go and then keeps them engaged consistently enough that my hunch is most audiophiles will be more than satisfied. While some of the early surround activity is relatively "mundane", offering a representation of the background clamor of an airport, and even the initial scenes as the flight begins tend to be subtle in side and rear channel engagement, once the plane encounters a violent storm, there's a whirlwind of surround activity that clearly engages all of the channels and provides a thrilling if disturbing sonic experience. Once the flight has more or less crash landed, a glut of jungle ambient environmental sounds keeps the surround channels active, and of course the frequent action sequences offer nice discrete placement of everything from bones shattering in hand to hand combat to the firing of guns. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English, French and Spanish subtitles are available.

Plane 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Both the 4K UHD and 1080 discs in this package sport the same slate of supplemental material:

• This Is Your Captain (HD; 14:18) offers the cast and crew touting the pleasures of working with Gerard Butler.


• Plane Clothes (HD; 6:51) focuses on costume design.


• Brace for Turbulence (HD; 19:14) looks at some of the more violent action moments, including the plane crash.


• Theatrical Trailer (HD; 2:29)

Additionally, a digital copy is included and packaging features a slipcover.

Plane 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Kind of amusingly, the Main Menu on this disc offers an "in flight" announcement that the film being shown will indeed be Plane, but my hunch is few if any actual flights will be offering this outing for passengers, since flyers are often nervous enough without wondering if they're going to crash land on a Philippine island being run by insurgents. This film is unabashedly preposterous a lot of the time, but it's also genuinely exciting and well staged. Technical merits are solid and the few supplements enjoyable. Recommended.