Bruce Payne, while evil as ever, is truly effective in this movie while also providing some humor as well. I won’t give much away, but as I said before, there’s plenty of action and some impressive fight scenes. She attends his training classes on what to do in the event that something like say a terrorist takeover occurs!What ensues is a one-on-one battle with Cutter and the goons who work for Rane. Cutter manages to escape the violence and terror and seeks the help in a flight attendant named Marti (Alex Datcher) with whom he’s already familiar with. Once the plane takes off, Rane’s terrorist crew overtake the plane causing much havoc. You can probably guess what happens next. In a sheer chance of luck, or maybe not, Cutter is on the same flight as Charles Rane is on! Cutter accepts and is now flying to Los Angeles to accept the job. They discuss this further at a lunch meeting with the President of the company Stuart Ramsey (Bruce Greenwood). He wants Cutter to be the Vice President of the Anti-terrorism unit for his company, Atlantic International Airlines. Perhaps the reason for his up tightness is that he was unable to save his wife from a convenience store robbery and is still haunted by those events.Īfter a training exercise goes awry leaving Cutter somewhat embarrassed and even a bit ticked off, an old friend of his named Sly Delvecchio (Tom Sizemore) enters the movie and offers Cutter an unique offer.
He takes his job very seriously and doesn’t like to kid around. Then we get to meet John Cutter (Wesley Snipes) who works as an airline security expert and specializes in training the flight attendants on what to do in the likely event that someone would attempt to overtake the plane.
While awaiting a transfer back to Los Angeles, the F.B.I decides to fly the terrorist back in order to stand trial for his crimes. Passenger 57 is joyfully cheesy, and knows it.Īll Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.The movie opens with a notable terrorist named Charles Rane (Bruce Payne) attempting to escape from the F.B.I in Miami, Florida only to be captured after a foot pursuit. And it is notable that every good character here is Black, and all the terrorists and dimwit small-town cops are white.īruce Payne has a ton of fun as psychotic and worthwhile adversary Charles Rane (known as the Rane of Terror), always on the prowl for his next cold-blooded kill as fuel for a smarmy self-congratulatory streak. The screenplay by David Loughery and Dan Gordon swings for memorable one-liners at every opportunity and mostly misses, but does land one beauty with Cutter's "always bet on Black" proclamation. In an early appearance, Elizabeth Hurley gets to wield a gun around, but her prominence fades. The attempted insertion of interesting secondary characters is summarily abandoned, as a mom and child on the flight just disappear, Tom Sizemore flaps, and Bruce Greenwood as an airline executive is unsure what his role is. The weirdly appropriate but still quite horrid Stanley Clarke soundtrack mushes the worst of the 70s with the worst of the 80s in a celebration of softcore porn thrillers. The breakneck pacing cannot disguise flat characterizations, cheap sets, logic gaps, and frequent physics law violations. Director Kevin Hooks leverages Wesley Snipes' comfort with martial arts and his smooth - almost disinterested - charisma, and keeps the action moving with hectic urgency. Cutter is the only person standing between the terrorist and freedom, and gets help from feisty flight attendant Marti Slayton (Alex Datcher) as the plane heads towards a small Louisiana airport.īorrowing ideas from Die Hard and its first sequel, Passenger 57 adds a positive Black power message and blows through in a grand total of 84 frenzied minutes.
Several of Rane's allies are on the flight, and they kill his FBI escorts and take control of the plane. Cutter agrees to travel to Los Angeles to meet his new bosses, and coincidentally boards the commercial flight being used by FBI agents to escort Rane to trial. Cutter is now prodded back into active service by his friend Sly Delvecchio (Tom Sizemore), the head of security with Atlantic International Airlines. Underemployed airline security expert John Cutter (Wesley Snipes) is still mourning his wife, who was killed by a violent robber. Ruthless international terrorist and airline hijacking expert Charles Rane (Bruce Payne) is arrested by the FBI in Miami just as he was about to undergo face-changing plastic surgery. An action thriller, Passenger 57 adopts a B-movie ethos to deliver a familiar story of one good guy standing up to a band of terrorists.