Air Force One Down

Gotta give credit to the kids who made this film with the budget they had, which was probably equivalent to a summer long work of mowing lawns. I mean with just an iPhone they were able to make a quite a convincing film.

If they had a bit more budget, this might've made the blockbusters. But with what they had, it is quite a decent job. A few pointers for improvement:

• fight scenes are well choreographed but way too slow. It looks like they were playing patty cake.

• might want to add airplane sounds when you are on Airforce One, else it just looks like it is filmed in a building.

• Best actor is definitely the general, give him a bonus.

• Plot needs work. Why did the bad guys kill all the secret service on sight except for those which fit the plot? Why did they keep the main character alive all this time for?

Anyways, good job. You did the best with what you've got.

4/10.

We get it. Empowering women and showing they can do all what men can and more is a trendy concept these last years, apparently educating people about this is more important than making a good story. Some great movies pull that off well, like like I Spit on your Grave, Kill Bill or Revenge. This one however comes off as so ridiculously unrealistic it just becomes annoying.

The heroines inability to lose reminds me of the cartoon Roadrunner, where the coyote keeps failing at getting his prey. At first it is amusing, then it just becomes annoying and finally you just hope he gets his meal, as he is the real underdog you end up rooting for.

With her toothpick arms she can throw huge top trained bodybuilders around with ease. Where is the thrill when she will ALWAYS win no matter the circumstances? The only way she could lose is if she fights a minority person or another woman, which makes everything it so predictable it almost hurts. And the plot holes are so dense there is basically no plot just holes.

If you get a kick out of seeing skinny women predictably beat up large muscular men without any effort over and over, this might be for you. If you want a good movie that makes you root for the beat down hero who is clawing through pain and challenges against all odds and make you keep guessing what will happen next on the edge of your seat, then dont waste your time here. You have seen this movie too many times already.

This could have been a much better movie if a tiny bit of realism had been applied. There is no way on earth that the pilot of Air Force one would not have a Secret Service detail posted at his house and himself.

There is no way on earth that with just one phone call (calling in sick) a replacement pilot would be put on the flight without rigorous Secret Service checks and double and triple checks before clearance.

There is no way on earth so many weapons could be smuggled onto Air Force One, even if the terrorists had someone very close to the POTUS.

Other than that, the movie was ok I suppose. I generally like movies with female butt-kicking leads.

The acting was terrible. The writing was terrible. There was not even an attempt to get right such details as military customs and courtesies. Anyone who worked on this as a military or technical advisor should be fired and never work on a movie or TV show again. I had to fast forward through large parts of the film to not fall asleep. Relative to any of the "White House Down"/"...Fallen" movies, this makes those look like the Godfather Part 2. How the hell did this get greenlit? Are you telling me there was no more deserving script available? This was like weak fan fic written by someone who hasn't even bothered to watch West Wing, much less understand the technologies and security mechanisms necessary to electronically control AF1. And a rag tag bunch of thugs from (insert Eastern European country here) a fake country with terrible accents can just smuggle guns on AF1 and overwhelm the home team which knows every inch of the craft in a matter of seconds? Do not waste your time. Seriously. Just awful. The amount of belief that had to be suspended in order for this script to be plausible was so large that you're more likely to win 5 Powerball jackpots in a row than for this garbage to happen. Booooo.

The fight choreography is first class. Unfortunately, the dialogue is lame, storyline hackneyed and direction rote. None of your favorite actors are anywhere near this movie, understandably. My theory is that the whole thing was created by ChatGPT4o with the instruction, "Make a happy-ending action movie for the US streaming market where the US president is kidnapped from his plane by a small band of Eastern European ex-military gangsters." Ok, I admit, you will recognize our favorite spooky eastern bad guy, Rade Serbedzija, who alone gives the whole movie any air of legitimacy it might have. He's great.