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 Xander Berkeley William H. Macy Paul Guilfoyle
Edited by	Richard Francis-Bruce
Music by	Jerry Goldsmith
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures Buena Vista International
Release date	July 25, 1997 (1997-07-25)
Running time	124 minutes
Country	Template:Film US
Language	English
Budget	$85 million
Box office	$315,156,409

Air Force One is a 1997 American action film written by Andrew W. Marlowe and directed by Wolfgang Petersen. It stars Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman, and Glenn Close, and also features Xander Berkeley, William H. Macy and Paul Guilfoyle. It was rated R by the MPAA for its "intense violence".

Plot

In 1993, a joint special operations mission composed of Russian Spetsnaz and American Delta Force operators capture General Ivan Radek (Jürgen Prochnow), the leader of what is deemed to be a "terrorist regime" in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan.

Three weeks later, James Marshall (Harrison Ford), the President of the United States, visiting Moscow, delivers a different speech than planned. He starts by saying that he doesn't deserve to be congratulated. He explains this by the shock of the sight of the so many refugees fleeing from the horror of Kazakhstan. Marshall reveals that they only acted because American national security was threatened by Radek. He says that Radek's regime is responsible for the murder of over 200,000 men, women and children, and for over year, America just sat back and let it happen, while just issuing economic sanctions and hiding "behind the rhetoric of diplomacy". He states that "real peace" is the presence of justice along with absence of conflict. He declares that he is changing American policy, political self-interest will no longer stop America from doing what is right and that the capture of Radek is the start of a new offensive against terrorism and vows that he will never negotiate with terrorists, and that it's their "turn to be afraid".

Jim, his wife Grace (Wendy Crewson), daughter Alice (Liesel Matthews), (who was there for a ballet competition) much of his Cabinet and his advisers board Air Force One to return to the United States. During their departure, they are unaware that six Soviet nationalist terrorists who are loyal to Radek, led by Ivan Korshunov (Gary Oldman), who are posing as a Russian news crew and have been able to board the plane. Mid-flight, they are able to overtake the Secret Service forces with help from their mole in the Secret Service. They seize the weapons from the locker room and take control of the plane. 18 passengers and crew are killed and many are wounded. Agents hustle a reluctant Marshall to the escape pod before Korshunov can capture him. When the flight crew attempts to make an emergency landing at Ramstein Air Base, Korshunov executes the pilots and sets the plane on a course back to Russia.

Korshunov gathers the surviving passengers into one room and contacts the White House Situation Room, where he speaks to Vice President Kathryn Bennett (Glenn Close). He demands that they arrange for Radek's release in exchange for the President's family, saying he will kill one hostage every half hour until Radek is released. He kills National Security Advisor Jack Doherty (Tom Everet). Meanwhile, the viewers find that Marshall is still on board; the escape pod deployed empty. Marshall is downstairs and kills two of Korshunov's men Vladimir Krasin and Boris Bazylev. Korshunov finds out and, thinking the man downstairs is a Secret Service agent, demands through the plane's intercom that the man surrender in ten seconds, or he will kill White House Deputy Press Secretary Melanie Mitchell (Donna Bullock). Marshall is indecisive and Mitchell is killed. Marshall is able to contact Bennett via mobile phone, and she learns that he never escaped. Hiding from Korshunov in the avionics bay, he orders them to fire on the plane so he could attack a hijacker, Igor Nevsky, who was holding him at gunpoint. It works as he plans as the hijackers are distracted as they deploy the plane's missile defense mechanisms. Soon the hijackers realize that their kidnapping attempt has not gone without resistance.

While Bennett, the Secretary of Defense, and the Attorney General argue fruitlessly about who has jurisdiction in Marshall's absence, Marshall is able to initiate a fuel dump of Air Force One's fuel reserve. This forces Korshunov to demand a mid-air refueling. Marshall is able to sneak back into the conference room where the passengers are being held. Major Caldwell (William H. Macy) comes up with a plan where the refueling tanker will ask the hijackers to drop to an altitude of 15,000 feet, and the hostages can safely escape via parachute. Marshall is able to send a fax transmission to the White House ordering them to carry out the plan. They take Nevsky hostage and escort the remaining passengers to the cargo hold. From there, most of them parachute to safety. But one of Korshunov's men discovers the attempt and stops the remaining advisors and the First Family from leaving by shooting a fire extinguisher in the locked door to the tail cone. The depressurization forces the VC-25 to suddenly pull away from the fueling plane. The fuel transfer pipe isn't shut off, starting a fire that destroys the KC-10 Extender above. Several people fall out of Air Force One without parachutes, including Nevsky.

Korshunov takes Marshall hostage and threatens to kill his daughter. He forces Marshall to call the Russian president and request Radek's release. The White House intercepts the call and the Secretary of State organizes an effort where half of the president's cabinet attests to Marshall's incapacity to carry out the office of the president. However, the plan cannot go into action because Bennett refuses to go along with it. As Radek prepares to leave prison, Marshall breaks free and kills the last two of Korshynov's men Kolchak and Lenski. In the struggle, Lloyd Shepherd jumps in front of a bullet, saving the president but getting wounded badly. During the struggle Korshunov drags Marshall's wife down to the cargo bay. She fights him off and Marshall attacks him. Marshall wraps a parachute around Korshunov's neck and says "Get off my plane!" and deploys it, breaking Korshunov's neck and killing him, and then pushes Korshunov's body off the parachute ramp where the wind carries his dead body away, still attached to the parachute. With all of the hijackers dead, Marshall communicates his freedom to the Russians in time before Radek is freed. Radek attempts to escape prison but is shot dead.

Marshall, a former pilot, takes over the plane hoping to fly to the closest safe airbase, but he learns that six Kazakh MiG-29s loyal to Radek are in pursuit. Intercepting USAF F-15 fighters fend off the MiG-29s, including one pilot who sacrifices himself to stop a missile from hitting Air Force One.

However, the explosion damages the plane's tail, forcing it into a descent far over the Caspian Sea. It is now badly damaged and impossible to land, and the plane is running out of fuel. An Air Force Pararescue MC-130 Hercules (callsign "Liberty 24") plane is hastily tasked to zip-line Marshall and the remaining passengers from the plane before it hits the water. Marshall insists on first rescuing his daughter, his wife, and the wounded Sheppard. When it's announced that only one more retrieval can be made, Secret Service agent Gibbs (Xander Berkeley) pulls out a gun, killing Caldwell and the remaining para-jumper before revealing himself to be the mole who got the terrorists onto the plane. Marshall fights with Gibbs before escaping from Air Force One at the last moment before the plane crashes and breaks up in the Caspian Sea. Agent Gibbs is left aboard and is killed as the plane crashes into the water, and Marshall is reeled aboard Liberty 24, which becomes Air Force One as he enters the aircraft.

Cast

• Harrison Ford as President James Marshall
• Gary Oldman as Ivan Korshunov
• Glenn Close as Vice President Kathryn Bennett
• Wendy Crewson as Grace Marshall
• Liesel Matthews as Alice Marshall
• Elya Baskin as Andrei Kolchak
• Levan Uchaneishvili as Sergei Lenski
• David Vadim as Igor Nevsky
• Andrew Divoff as Boris Bazylev
• Ilia Volok as Vladimir Krasin
• Paul Guilfoyle as White House Chief of Staff Lloyd Shepherd
• Xander Berkeley as United States Secret Service Agent Gibbs
• William H. Macy as Major Caldwell
• Alan Woolf as Russian President Petrov
• Dean Stockwell as Secretary of Defense Walter Dean
• Tom Everett as National Security Advisor Jack Doherty
• Jürgen Prochnow as General Alexander Radek
• Donna Bullock as Deputy Press Secretary Melanie Mitchell
• Michael Ray Miller as Colonel Axelrod
• Carl Weintraub as Lieutenant Colonel Ingraham
• Spencer Garrett as White House Aide Thomas Lee
• Bill Smitrovich as General Northwood
• Glenn Morshower as Agent Walters
• Dan Shor as Notre Dame Aide
• Philip Baker Hall as U.S. Atty. General Andrew Ward
• Richard Doyle as Colonel Bob Jackson, A.F.O. Backup Pilot
• Willard Pugh as White House Communications Officer
• Don R. McManus as Colonel Jack Carlton, F-15 "Halo Flight" Leader
• Duke Miglin as "Halo 2" F-15 Fighter Pilot
• Pavel D. Lychnikoff as Prison Guard #1
• Oleg Taktarov as Prison Guard #2
• Alex Veadov as MiG-29 Pilot
• Ren Hanami as Reporter #4

Many of the cast would later appear in 24: Xander Berkeley, Glenn Morshower, Jürgen Prochnow, Spencer Garrett, Timothy Carhart, Bill Smitrovich, Wendy Crewson, and Tom Everett.

Production

The first trailer of Air Force One did not include Gary Oldman's character, but the widely positive popular response to his acting caused later trailers to feature him.

A large part of the crew took a tour of the real Air Force One before filming. They based some of the scenes in the film, where the terrorists disguised as journalists survey the layout of the plane 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.

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 comedic and genial Oldman would be off-screen. He also said that Oldman would suddenly return to the menacing film persona like a shot. Harrison Ford has since named Oldman as his favorite onscreen nemesis.

Reception

Air Force One received favorable reviews from critics, with an overall approval rating of 78% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert gave the film 2.5 stars out of 4. The performance of Gary Oldman was praised, claimed as "flawless and menacing." Conversely, 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.

Then-President Bill Clinton saw the film twice and gave it good reviews. He noted, however, that certain elements of the film's plane, such as the escape pod and the rear parachute ramp, did not reflect actual features of Air Force One. In the audio commentary, Wolfgang Petersen reflected that although the real plane did not have those features at the time of the filming, it would—according to him—be probably added by future governments. However, because of the highly classified nature of Air Force One's security features, the possibility of the capsule and parachute ramp existing cannot be completely ruled out.

The film was nominated for two Academy Awards; one for Best Film Editing, the other for Best Sound.

In the Call of Duty video games, World at War and Black Ops, the Russian brutal character of Viktor Reznov (who was voiced by Gary Oldman) was said to be somewhat loosely inspired by Oldman's Russian character in this film in essence, however, instead this time Oldman switch roles from a villain to a hero as the character of Reznov was more of a heroic character unlike the psychotically villainous Ivan was in the film. In addition, Andrew Divoff (who played one of the henchmen who gets his neck snapped by Ford's character in the film) would reunite with Oldman in the game Black Ops as the sadistic Soviet Colonel Lev Kravchenko (most interestingly, Oleg Taktarov, who played a prison guard in charge of escorting Radek out of his cell under Ivan's demands, was originally considered to voice Kravchenko before passing the role to Divoff). The character portrayed by Oldman may have also inspired the appearance of one of the villains in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Vladimir Makarov, who bears a striking facial resemblance to Oldman (but without the beard) as well as both characters wielding the same weapon with a Kevlar vest over a suit.

Score

Randy Newman was initially hired to write the film score, which Newman's score itself was akin to Elmer Bernstein's action scores such as The Great Escape and The Bridge at Remagen; however, Petersen considered his version to be almost a parody and commissioned Jerry Goldsmith to write and record a more sombre and patriotic score in just twelve days (with an assist from Joel McNeely). After the harried experience, Goldsmith vowed never again to take on such a last-minute task.

As for Newman, some of his material from the rejected score was used in Toy Story 3.

Varese 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).

1. The Parachutes (5:14)
2. The Motorcade (2:40)
3. Empty Rooms (4:02)
4. The Hijacking (7:30)
5. No Security (2:59)
6. Free Flight (4:41)
7. Escape From Air Force One (5:25)
8. Welcome Aboard, Sir (2:06)

External links

• Air Force One at IMDb
• Air Force One at the TCM Movie Database
• Air Force One at Rotten Tomatoes
• ‹The template AllMovie title is being considered for deletion.› Air Force One at AllMovie
  • "Air Force One Movie Gallery". Retrieved October 5, 2010.
  • "Ivan Korshunov character information at Villain Abode.com". Retrieved October 5, 2010.
  • "Air Force One as Political Communication". Retrieved October 5, 2010.