Plot:
Terrorists hijack a 747 inbound to Washington D.C., demanding the release of their imprisoned leader. Intelligence expert David Grant suspects another reason and he is soon the reluctant member of a special assault team that is assigned to intercept the plane and hijackers.
Cast: Kurt Russell, Steven Seagal, Halle Berry, David Suchet, Oliver Platt, John Leguizamo, Joe Morton, BD Wong, Andreas Katsulas & J. T. Walsh.
Written by: The brothers Jim and John Thomas (Predator and Predator 2).
I watched the movie sometime in 1998 on VHS & still remember my surprise by the unexpected death of Steven Seagal’s character in the first act.
by Neo2199
27 Comments
Great action flick! Might have to give it a rewatch as it’s been awhile.
One of my friends cheered at the spoiler in the theater, way too hard 🫢
interesting the airline is Oceanic. Rough few years for that company.
Seagull best role. Snubbed by the Oscar
The best part of this film happened in the first 27 minutes.
I’m still amazed they fit so many people into a single seat “fighter”/bomber
I was soooo pissed when I went to see this in the theaters.
This movie truly had the FATTEST F-117 ever.
Best Steven Seagal movie
Austin Travis. You can’t get much more a ‘Mercia! name than that.
Spoiler was a result of Spoiler-Individual having overrun budget so badly on previous film such that Spoiler-Individual owed the film studio money. Scenes had to be re-written a couple of times, because Spoiler-Individual was dissatisfied, and, even in the theatrical scene, did it under protest.
Easter 1996. My dad took the whole family out to Easter Dinner at Old Country Buffet. We then followed that up by heading over to the theater to watch Executive Decision. I will always remember the shocked gasp from the audience when>!Seagal’s limp body goes rag dolling out of that plane.!<
That viewing was also the first time I saw the Twister teaser trailer. The one that featured ILM’s proof of concept shot of a CGI tire flying right into the camera. 13 year old me was blown away! Pun intended. I ended up forcing my mom to take me to see Twister six or seven times that summer.
EDIT: Found that Twister teaser. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB7haistlIE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB7haistlIE)
Mainly, Halle Berry’s heavy breathing and fetching bosoms.
Seagal’s best performance.
I thought that was a pretty good movie. Shocked at the Steven Seagal scene
I saw this in the theater and that is the only thing I remember about this movie.
The reaction of the audience at this moment in the theater was really interesting. It was pretty obvious who the people were who thought they had come to watch a Steven Seagal movie.
Nobody left, though.
Credit to the studio for managing to keep this a secret.
I remember watching this as a kid. My mom wanted to watch it because Steven Seagal was in it and >! until the movie was almost over she swore that he had survived somehow and would show up later. !<
Awesome movie!
was this film the beginning of Steven Seagal’s “gimmie the highest hourly rate” career?
This is the movie that made me realize John Leguizamo is actually a pretty good actor.
Seagal was never cooler onscreen
So fuckin weird about two hours ago I search for this movie and discussions on reddit and now I see in the last hour this thread pops up? A 30 year old movie?
The filmmakers told Steven Seagal that his character survived the fall, which was the only reason he agreed to go along with it
The best moment of Steven Seagal’s film career.
Haven’t seen this in almost 30 years. In my head Kurt russell was the president lol
This one always made me laugh because the remora plane is so absurd. Part of that was of course because the performance and other specs of the F117 and what actually make it stealthy were still pretty murky, so they didn’t necessarily know. That said, as shown it’s significantly more than double the size of the real thing, with a giant cabin and plane weiner poking out the top that would destroy its stealth, while even the real thing (even without a huge cabin and a bunch of dudes inside) would struggle *hard* to intercept a 747 at cruise; it’s max speed of Mach .92 is the exact same as the 747’s with comparable cruise and a fraction the range.
Even past all of that, there would never be any reason to develop a stealth boarding plane like that. The stealth would hide it from ground and airborne radar up to a point, but it’s *lack* of radar return would do the absolute opposite as it approached by painting a huge, completely blank, zero return at all shadow on a huge section any military airborne radar, way before it was close enough to attach. Its radar cross section is tiny, but that doesn’t mean that radar returns can pass through it from behind. It’s a hole in the sky, tiny from a distant perspective (especially against the sky), but huge if it’s fifty feet away and against terrain. A mile away that shadow is invisible to the computer, but 20% of the scans return completely blank (including blocked terrain returns, it’s literally no return at all) is going to be noticeable. And civilian aircraft don’t have air to air radar, so there’s no point there either; in that case it doesn’t matter if it’s stealth.
It’s played so seriously while being so hilariously absurd that it’s a classic.