Air Force One (film)

Air Force One
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Wolfgang Petersen
Written by	Andrew W. Marlowe
Produced by	Armyan Bernstein Thomas Bliss Gail Katz Jonathan Shestack Wolfgang Petersen
Starring	Harrison Ford Gary Oldman Glenn Close Dean Stockwell Xander Berkeley William H. Macy Paul Guilfoyle
Cinematography	Michael Ballhaus
Edited by	Richard Francis-Bruce
Music by	Jerry Goldsmith
Production companies	Beacon Pictures Touchstone Pictures
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures (United States) Buena Vista International (International)
Release date	July 25, 1997 (1997-07-25)
Running time	124 minutes
Country	United States
Languages	English Russian
Budget	$85 million
Box office	$315.1 million

Air Force One is a 1997 American political action thriller film written by Andrew W. Marlowe and directed and co-produced by Wolfgang Petersen. It is about a group of Russian terrorists that hijack Air Force One.

The film stars Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman, as well as Glenn Close, Xander Berkeley, William H. Macy, Dean Stockwell, and Paul Guilfoyle. A box office success with generally supportive critical reviews, the film was one of the most popular action films of the 1990s, and sitting U.S. President Bill Clinton praised it.

Plot

A joint operation between American and Russian Special Forces leads to the capture of General Ivan Radek (Jürgen Prochnow), the dictator of a rogue terrorist regime in Kazakhstan that had possession of stolen Soviet nuclear weapons. Three weeks later, President of the United States James Marshall (Harrison Ford) is invited to Moscow for a diplomatic dinner, during which he praises the capture and insists the United States will never negotiate with terrorists. Marshall and his entourage, including his wife Grace (Wendy Crewson) and daughter Alice (Liesel Matthews), and several of his Cabinet and advisers, prepare to return to the United States on Air Force One. In addition, a number of press corps have been invited aboard.

After takeoff, U.S. Secret Service agent Gibbs (Xander Berkeley), acting as a mole, enables a group of six Russian Radek loyalists, posed as a press corps, to obtain weapons and take over the plane, killing many of the other agents and other military personnel while taking the civilians hostage. Marshall is raced to an escape pod in the cargo hold while pursued by the loyalists' leader, Ivan Korshunov (Gary Oldman). Korshunov arrives too late as the pod is ejected, and returns to the main deck to secure Grace and Alice separate from the other hostages. Unknown to Korshunov, Marshall, a Medal of Honor recipient, remained hidden in the cargo hold instead of using the pod, and begins to observe the loyalists using his military training.

Korshunov contacts Vice President Kathryn Bennett (Glenn Close) with his demand to arrange the release of Radek or he will kill a hostage every half-hour. Marshall uses a fax machine with which he contacts Bennett. With help of military advisers, they devise a plan to release the hostages by forcing Air Force One to a lower mid-air refueling altitude by having Marshall dump the plane's fuel; from there, the hostages can parachute safely off the plane. As Korshunov and his pilot dock with the KC-10 tanker, Marshall subdues the other loyalists, frees the hostages, and helps escort them to the cargo hold. Korshunov realizes the deception, and in his haste to disconnect from the tanker, causes the fuel to ignite, destroying the tanker. Korshunov arrives as the last of the hostages are freed. He prevents Marshall, Chief of Staff Lloyd Shepherd (Paul Guilfoyle), Major Caldwell (William H. Macy), and Gibbs from escaping.

With the President and his family under his control, Korshunov forces Marshall to contact Russian President Petrov and arrange for Radek's release. Bennett is urged by Defense Secretary Walter Dean (Dean Stockwell) to declare the President incapable under the 25th amendment so as to override Radek's release, but she refuses. As the news of Radek's release reaches Air Force One, Korshunov and his men celebrate, giving Marshall the opportunity to break his bonds, kill Korshunov's men, and throw Korshunov off the plane when he tries to escape himself. Marshall races back to rescind his order, and Radek is subsequently killed when he attempts to escape.

Marshall and Major Caldwell direct the plane back to friendly airspace accompanied by U.S. F-15s, but they are quickly tailed by MiG-29s piloted by other Radek loyalists that try to shoot down the plane. Marshall is able to evade most of the missile launches, while one F-15 pilot sacrifices himself to intercept a missile; the resulting explosion tears apart the plane's tail, and they quickly start to lose altitude. A standby USAF Rescue HC-130 is called to help, sending parajumpers on tether lines to help rescue the survivors. Marshall insists that his family and the injured Shepherd be transferred first. They are told there is time for only one more transfer, at which point Gibbs reveals himself as the mole, killing Caldwell and the parajumper. Marshall and Gibbs fight for control of the transfer line, and Marshall manages to grab and detach it at the last minute. Gibbs is killed as Air Force One crashes into the Caspian Sea. The HC-130 airmen reel Marshall in, where he reunites with his family. With the President safe, the HC-130 is renamed "Air Force One" as they fly back to friendly space.

Cast

• Harrison Ford as U.S. President James Marshall
• Gary Oldman as Ivan Korshunov, a Russian Radek loyalist
• Glenn Close as U.S. Vice President Kathryn Bennett
• Wendy Crewson as First Lady Grace Marshall
• Liesel Matthews as First Daughter Alice Marshall
• Dean Stockwell as U.S. Defense Secretary Walter Dean
• Elya Baskin as Andrei Kolchak, Korshunov's best friend and pilot
• Levan Uchaneishvili as Sergei Lenski, Korshunov's henchman
• David Vadim as Igor Nevsky, Korshunov's henchman
• Andrew Divoff as Boris Bazylev, Korshunov's henchman
• Ilia Volok as Vladimir Krasin, Korshunov's henchman
• Paul Guilfoyle as White House Chief of Staff Lloyd Shepherd
• Xander Berkeley as U.S. Secret Service Agent Gibbs, head of President's Secret Service detail.
• William H. Macy as Major Norman Caldwell, military aide to the President
• Alan Woolf as Russian President Petrov
• Tom Everett as U.S. National Security Advisor Jack Doherty
• Jürgen Prochnow as General Ivan Radek, the dictator of Kazakhstan
• Donna Bullock as Deputy Press Secretary Melanie Mitchell
• Michael Ray Miller as Colonel Axelrod, pilot of Air Force One
• Carl Weintraub as Lieutenant Colonel Ingraham, co-pilot of Air Force One
• Spencer Garrett as White House Aide Thomas Lee
• Bill Smitrovich as General Northwood
• Glenn Morshower as U.S. Secret Service Agent Walters
• David Gianopoulos as U.S. Secret Service Agent Johnson
• Dan Shor as Notre Dame Aide
• Philip Baker Hall as U.S. Attorney General Andrew Ward
• Richard Doyle as Colonel Bob Jackson, Air Force 1 Backup Pilot
• Willard Pugh as White House Communications Officer
• Don R. McManus as Lt. Colonel Jack Carlton, F-15 "Halo Flight" Leader
• J.A. Preston as the USAF Maj. General who was President Marshall's Commanding Officer during the Vietnam War

Production

A large part of the crew took a tour of the real Air Force One before filming. They based some of the film's scenes, where the terrorists disguised as journalists survey the plane's layout and begin to take their seats, on the touring experience. The character of Deputy Press Secretary Melanie Mitchell was based largely on their real life tour guide, and the crew felt uncomfortable having to film the character's execution by the terrorists.

For the exterior scenes, the producers rented a Boeing 747-212B aircraft, N703CK from Kalitta Air and repainted it to replicate the iconic Air Force One livery.

Scenes explaining why Agent Gibbs was the mole were cut from the final script. According to director Wolfgang Petersen, Gibbs was a former CIA agent who lost a lot after the end of the Cold War and thus became angry with the American government. The hijackers never reveal to anyone Gibbs' true identity, to the point where they also tie him up along with President Marshall, Major Caldwell, and Chief of Staff Lloyd Shepherd.

Gary Oldman did not stay in character between the scenes. The director later said he called the filming experience 'Air Force Fun' because of how comic and genial Oldman would be off-screen. He also said that Oldman would suddenly return to the menacing film persona like a shot.

General Radek's palace, seen in the film's opening, was portrayed by two locations in Cleveland, Ohio: the exterior was Severance Hall, and the interior was the Cuyahoga County Courthouse. The Russian prison where Radek was incarcerated was the Ohio State Reformatory, previously seen in The Shawshank Redemption.

F-15 Eagle aircraft from the 33d Operations Group were used in the movie.

Reception

Air Force One received generally positive reviews from critics, with an overall "fresh" rating of 79% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone awarded the film 3.5/4 stars, describing it as "superior escapism", and concluding, "Air Force One doesn't insult the audience. It is crafted by a film-maker who takes pride in the thrills and sly fun he packs into every frame. Welcome to something rare in a summer of crass commercialism: a class act." Todd McCarthy of Variety described the film as "a preposterously pulpy but quite entertaining suspense meller" that is "spiked by some spectacularly staged and genuinely tense action sequences." He lauded the film's antagonist: "[Gary] Oldman, in his second malevolent lead of the summer, after The Fifth Element, registers strongly as a veteran of the Afghan campaign pushed to desperate lengths to newly ennoble his country."

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 2.5 stars out of 4, writing, "The movie is well-served by the quality of the performances...Air Force One is a fairly competent recycling of familiar ingredients, given an additional interest because of Harrison Ford's personal appeal." Conversely, Adam Mars-Jones of The Independent called it "so preposterous that it begins to seem like a science-fiction artifact...the product of a parallel-universe 1990s which somehow by-passed the decades since the 1950s."

The film was a major box office success, earning $172,650,002 (54.9%) domestically and $142,200,000 (45.1%) in other countries. It grossed a total of $315,156,409 worldwide in the box office. It was the year's fifth highest-grossing film worldwide.

President Bill Clinton saw the film twice while in office and gave it good reviews. He noted, however, that certain elements of the film's version of Air Force One, such as the escape pod and the rear parachute ramp, did not reflect features of the actual Air Force One. In the audio commentary, Wolfgang Petersen mused that although the real plane did not have those features at the time of the filming, they would probably be added by future governments.

In December 2015, presidential candidate Donald Trump revealed his admiration for "Harrison Ford on the plane ... He stood up for America." When Ford was told during a TV interview of Trump's compliment, he turned to the camera and said "Donald, it was a movie."

The film was nominated for two Academy Awards; one for Best Film Editing, the other for Best Sound Mixing (Paul Massey, Rick Kline, Doug Hemphill and Keith A. Wester).

Score

Untitled

Randy Newman was initially hired to write the film score; however, Petersen considered his composition to be almost a parody and commissioned Jerry Goldsmith to write and record a more sombre and patriotic score in just twelve days, with assistance from Joel McNeely. After the harrowing experience, Goldsmith vowed never again to take on such a last-minute task.

Newman used some of his material from the rejected score in Toy Story 3.

Varèse Sarabande released a soundtrack album featuring Goldsmith's music (McNeely receives a credit on the back cover for "Additional Music in the Motion Picture", but none of his work is on the CD, although his cues include the material heard when Air Force One is under attack).

Novelization

A novelization of the film was published in June 1997 by author Max Allan Collins. Though the book has the same central plot and outcomes as the film, its main storyline significantly differs from the film.

See also

• List of action films of the 1990s

Further reading

• "Air Force One Movie Gallery". Archived from the original on December 8, 2008. Retrieved September 28, 2011. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
• "Air Force One as Political Communication". Retrieved October 5, 2010.
• Film Scouts (1999). "Air Force One: About The Production". Film Scouts. Film Scouts, LLC. Retrieved January 6, 2000. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)

External links

• Air Force One at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
• Air Force One at IMDb
• Air Force One at the TCM Movie Database
• Air Force One at Rotten Tomatoes
• Air Force One at AllMovie
• Fan script of Air Force One film