This week sees Mark Wahlberg’s Flight Risk hit theaters. In it, he plays a pilot escorting a U.S. Marshal (Michelle Dockery) across the Alaskan wilderness as she transports a fugitive (Topher Grace) on his way to trial. However, things take a dark and tense turn as each passenger reveals they have secrets and may not be who they seem.
Flight Risk isn’t the first, nor will it be the last, action movie or thriller set on a plane. The confined setting of a plane ramps up tension as there’s nowhere for the protagonist to go, and nowhere to hide when you’re 30,000 feet in the air. Thanks to that, there have been some great movies set on a plane, some cheesy ones, and everything in between. Here are a few to scratch that frequent flier itch.
Red Eye
It’s hard to go wrong with any movie with Cillian Murphy in it, and Cillian Murphy as a villain and Rachel McAdams as the protagonist is even better. When hotel manager Lisa Reisert is seated next to the charming businessman Jackson Rippner on a flight, she thinks her day is made. Unfortunately, he reveals he’s a hitman planning to assassinate a high-ranking member of the U.S. government, and he needs Lisa to change his room to allow Jackson access. Oh, and by the way? He’s kidnapped her father. Anyone who enjoyed seeing Murphy’s more unhinged side as Scarecrow in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy will surely enjoy him here.
Snakes on a Plane
There’s a Hollywood anecdote that “Snakes on a Plane” was only ever meant to be used as the temporary working title of the action movie, but when Samuel L. Jackson heard the studio wanted to change it to something more serious, he put his foot down. He signed up for motherf’ing snakes on a motherf’ing plane, and that’s what the title would be, dammit. That’s exactly what the movie is: a bunch of assassins release a horde of venomous snakes onto a plane to kill a star witness. It’s up to Jackson’s FBI agent Nelville Flynn to save the day. What you see is what you get and it’s glorious.
Air Force One
Harrison Ford is America’s curmudgeonly sweetheart, and it’s great to see that he’s been playing grizzled, grumpy, and roguishly charming characters for decades. Air Force One finds him playing President James Marshall, who becomes one of the ass-kickingest presidents in movie history when Russian terrorists take over Air Force One and threaten to start picking off hostages. Secret Service? Never heard of ’em. Marshall will use his combat training and his hands to take down the Russian terrorists and deliver hard-nosed lines while doing it.
Con Air
Few things are as great as watching a movie in which Nic Cage plays an unhinged villain or a walking embodiment of chaotic neutral. That said, it’s equally great to see him playing Cameron Poe, a just-released ex-con who just wants to get home to his family. Unfortunately for Poe, his ride out is a plane full of some of the worst convicts and criminals in the U.S. prison system. Of course, they hijack the plane and it’s up to Poe to play double agent as he secretly works with U.S. Air Marshal Vince Larkin (John Cusack) while trying to convince the convicts he’s on their side. Con Air doesn’t get as much love as some of Cage’s other ’90s action thrillers, but it’s just as much fun.
Sully
The only movie on this list based on a true story is just as gripping as any of the fictional stories above. The titular Sully, played by Tom Hanks, is Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, veteran U.S. Airways pilot. In January 2009, Sully made the dramatic and daring decision to land U.S. Airways Flight 1549 in the middle of the Hudson River in New York City after a flock of geese accidentally took out the engines. Landing a giant airliner on a choppy river was a nervy decision that required focus and nerves of steel to pull off, and director Clint Eastwood captures that tension with precision in his movie that recounts those events.
