I want to preface this by saying I'm awarding this movie one star because Katherine Mcnamara is a pleasing screen presence, and the action scenes aren't filmed with unintelligible shaky cam like most action films. Anyways, that's literally all the good stuff I can say about this film, even factoring in the low expectations for this sort of direct-to-streaming with a C-list cast type of action film that gets released 78 times a year.
The plot and dialogue in this movie are among the worst I've ever seen. Its as if the screenwriters abandoned ship 1/4 through and just let the actors and film staff come up with their own script on the fly. Characters repeat themselves and/or contradict themselves within the same scene. For example, the main bad guy, Rodinov, on the phone with AF1 and the President informs them that they have taken over air traffic control and are manipulating what AF1 base can see about the flight path. Then, just MOMENTS later, he asks his tech/hacker lackey "can they see whats happening with AF1?" You literally JUST told our main characters that they can't. How on earth would you not know this already? This is just one small example but indicative of the type of effort put into this film.
None of anything that happens on screen make a lick of sense. These terrorists easily replace and infiltrate an AF1 flight without a single person noticing. Even with inside help from someone close to POTUS, the execution of this plan would be impossible.
Droves of bad guys appear out of nowhere, literally out of nowhere. The characters make a point not only with early foreshadowing (don't let your guard down even if you've won) and outwardly discussing that someone close to POTUS has been working with the bad guys, and then don't bat an eye when the chief of staff is the first to immediately respond once all the Astovian soldiers have been taken down. It takes her tricking one of the heavies into saying he knows a made-up soldier for her to confirm her suspicions. This script is so, so bad.
I don't want to harp too much on the fights because they are well choreographed, and McNamara does have an athletic physicality that makes her somewhat believable but...there is simply no way she's pulling this off. She mows down an entire military base-I'm talking easily 60-70 soliders- by herself, essentially like shes an expert level first person shooter being controlled by a gamer, picking up better weapons as bad guys conveniently appear one or two at a time and essentially wait to be gunned down or kicked in the head. It is ABSURD.
Lastly, the dialogue is...it hardly even registers as dialogue. All the "Sir yes sir, won't let you down sir, promise you sir" is so forced and contrived and unnatural. Characters only speak in sweeping platitudes or exposition.
The movie is short enough - approximately 84 minutes if you remove credits-to possibly fall into so-bad-it's good territory, but there is no way this can be recommended overall.
The plot and dialogue in this movie are among the worst I've ever seen. Its as if the screenwriters abandoned ship 1/4 through and just let the actors and film staff come up with their own script on the fly. Characters repeat themselves and/or contradict themselves within the same scene. For example, the main bad guy, Rodinov, on the phone with AF1 and the President informs them that they have taken over air traffic control and are manipulating what AF1 base can see about the flight path. Then, just MOMENTS later, he asks his tech/hacker lackey "can they see whats happening with AF1?" You literally JUST told our main characters that they can't. How on earth would you not know this already? This is just one small example but indicative of the type of effort put into this film.
None of anything that happens on screen make a lick of sense. These terrorists easily replace and infiltrate an AF1 flight without a single person noticing. Even with inside help from someone close to POTUS, the execution of this plan would be impossible.
Droves of bad guys appear out of nowhere, literally out of nowhere. The characters make a point not only with early foreshadowing (don't let your guard down even if you've won) and outwardly discussing that someone close to POTUS has been working with the bad guys, and then don't bat an eye when the chief of staff is the first to immediately respond once all the Astovian soldiers have been taken down. It takes her tricking one of the heavies into saying he knows a made-up soldier for her to confirm her suspicions. This script is so, so bad.
I don't want to harp too much on the fights because they are well choreographed, and McNamara does have an athletic physicality that makes her somewhat believable but...there is simply no way she's pulling this off. She mows down an entire military base-I'm talking easily 60-70 soliders- by herself, essentially like shes an expert level first person shooter being controlled by a gamer, picking up better weapons as bad guys conveniently appear one or two at a time and essentially wait to be gunned down or kicked in the head. It is ABSURD.
Lastly, the dialogue is...it hardly even registers as dialogue. All the "Sir yes sir, won't let you down sir, promise you sir" is so forced and contrived and unnatural. Characters only speak in sweeping platitudes or exposition.
The movie is short enough - approximately 84 minutes if you remove credits-to possibly fall into so-bad-it's good territory, but there is no way this can be recommended overall.