What a difference a few years make...
Feb. 5th, 2003 10:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynWatched most of Executive Decision last night. Kurt Russell movie. My dad had it on while I was replacing my mom's hard drive & transferring stuff from the old to the new, etc. Basic idea: 747 gets hijacked by Algerian militants, ostensibly with the goal of forcing a particular prisoner to be released, but really with the goal of ramming the plane and the bomb secretly brought aboard into DC. Various things happen in the movie, including Oliver Platt putting the straw his techie character constantly chews on to very good use (must remember that, my own chewing habit could come in handy someday), but a number of things kept pestering me.
About twenty minutes before the end it becomes very clear that the Algerian in charge of the group on the plane has no intention of allowing anyone on board to live. He's going to keep the plane headed to Washington and blow the plane up, taking as much of DC as possible with it. He shoots one of his own men when the other man calls him insane and says 'we've accomplished our goal, now land the plane and accept the deal so we can go back to Algeria', because that's Just The Kind Of Evil Guy He Is. The pilot contacts DC at the terrorists' behest and informs them that they're going to head for Dulles and that they've got a gun to his head, and by now it's pretty clear to the remaining flight crew that they're not getting out of this alive once the plane is within (literal) striking distance of the city.
Even before that, early on in the movie, the same thought went through my head about eight or nine times: why doesn't the pilot ram the plane into the Atlantic? I can understand why he doesn't want to do it early in the movie, when they think it's just a release-the-chief extortion scheme, but... once the terrorists are threatening to kill him if he doesn't fly the plane with the bomb on board into the capital city of the United States, what exactly is stopping him from announcing that everyone had better make their peace with God and putting the transatlantic jetliner into a nosedive? When it comes down to it, the lives of a few hundred people versus the lives of everyone in DC is a rather lopsided equation....
I had to keep reminding myself that the movie was put out in 1996. That no one really believed a jetliner could or would be used as a ballistic missile. That no one seriously thought hijackers could get that close to the American mainland and put us in any real danger. The idea of sneaking a commando team aboard a jetliner in midair to prevent it from being put to Icky Bad People purposes seemed perfectly reasonable then. These days? These days, the Tomcats would be in the air before forty-five minutes were up. People might not be willing to pull a passenger-based Flight 93, because the guys in this movie had guns rather than boxcutters and that sort of skews your perception of how much good your action will do, but once the pilot knew he was essentially dead I have some real trouble believing a post-September 11 pilot would continue to fly his jet as ordered. The plane would hit the Atlantic faster than you could say 'dude, is it just me or is that terrorist G'kar without his makeup?'. Of course, these days the terrorists would probably anticipate this and send someone to fly the jet in his place, then kill the pilot straight off, but you know what I mean.
Which is not to say that it wasn't a fun movie. I rather enjoyed it, especially Oliver Platt and John Leguizamo. True, I could have done without the gazillion commercials, but still... I did not mind watching it precisely because it had so little bearing on the way things would be if it happened today.
Also because Steven Segal's part in this movie was apparently so small that I saw him for less than three minutes. He must've gotten killed while I was out of the room. Sorry, Steven fans, I'm just not very big on his stuff.
About twenty minutes before the end it becomes very clear that the Algerian in charge of the group on the plane has no intention of allowing anyone on board to live. He's going to keep the plane headed to Washington and blow the plane up, taking as much of DC as possible with it. He shoots one of his own men when the other man calls him insane and says 'we've accomplished our goal, now land the plane and accept the deal so we can go back to Algeria', because that's Just The Kind Of Evil Guy He Is. The pilot contacts DC at the terrorists' behest and informs them that they're going to head for Dulles and that they've got a gun to his head, and by now it's pretty clear to the remaining flight crew that they're not getting out of this alive once the plane is within (literal) striking distance of the city.
Even before that, early on in the movie, the same thought went through my head about eight or nine times: why doesn't the pilot ram the plane into the Atlantic? I can understand why he doesn't want to do it early in the movie, when they think it's just a release-the-chief extortion scheme, but... once the terrorists are threatening to kill him if he doesn't fly the plane with the bomb on board into the capital city of the United States, what exactly is stopping him from announcing that everyone had better make their peace with God and putting the transatlantic jetliner into a nosedive? When it comes down to it, the lives of a few hundred people versus the lives of everyone in DC is a rather lopsided equation....
I had to keep reminding myself that the movie was put out in 1996. That no one really believed a jetliner could or would be used as a ballistic missile. That no one seriously thought hijackers could get that close to the American mainland and put us in any real danger. The idea of sneaking a commando team aboard a jetliner in midair to prevent it from being put to Icky Bad People purposes seemed perfectly reasonable then. These days? These days, the Tomcats would be in the air before forty-five minutes were up. People might not be willing to pull a passenger-based Flight 93, because the guys in this movie had guns rather than boxcutters and that sort of skews your perception of how much good your action will do, but once the pilot knew he was essentially dead I have some real trouble believing a post-September 11 pilot would continue to fly his jet as ordered. The plane would hit the Atlantic faster than you could say 'dude, is it just me or is that terrorist G'kar without his makeup?'. Of course, these days the terrorists would probably anticipate this and send someone to fly the jet in his place, then kill the pilot straight off, but you know what I mean.
Which is not to say that it wasn't a fun movie. I rather enjoyed it, especially Oliver Platt and John Leguizamo. True, I could have done without the gazillion commercials, but still... I did not mind watching it precisely because it had so little bearing on the way things would be if it happened today.
Also because Steven Segal's part in this movie was apparently so small that I saw him for less than three minutes. He must've gotten killed while I was out of the room. Sorry, Steven fans, I'm just not very big on his stuff.
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Date: 2003-02-05 08:35 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-02-05 08:41 am (UTC)Nothing against John Leguizamo's role and that of the other soldiers, I'm just sayin' it's nice to have the Designated Brains be so prominent. And even the good guys with guns were pretty damn clever rather than gung-ho.
Even back then I was a cold-blooded git.
Date: 2003-02-05 08:55 am (UTC)-sssht- "Eagle one to command, Target in sight"
-shht- "Eagle one, this is Eagle Six... Go weapons Hot, Go Weapons Free"
-Shht- "Roger that Command... Eagle One... I have tone... Fox One."
Not that the whole ninja commando raid via the stealth plane schtick didn't amuse, but that's all it was for me at the time, an amusing fantasy alternative to what seemed an ugly truth.