Bullet Points: Money Plane
Money Plane is proof that action movies do not require a premise that is 100% believable or a premise that gets too caught up with logic, but the premise damn sure better be entertaining.
In addition to an entertaining premise, Money Plane has an eclectic cast that includes The Lawrence Brothers, Thomas Jane, Kelsey Grammer and WWE Superstar Edge…
- Ready to Rumble: After professional thief Jack Reese (Adam “Edge” Copeland, Interrogation) and his crew fail to retrieve a $40 million painting for Darius “The Rumble” Grouch (Kelsey Grammer, The Expendables 3) they find themselves between a rock and a hard place. The wealthy Grouch has an opportunity for Jack and his team to not only make up for the botched art heist, but also erase a huge debt that Jack Reese accrued five years earlier when his gambling problem got out of hand. The opportunity… rob a casino in the sky known as The Money Plane! Not having much wiggle room, Jack agrees to take the job.
- Plan A: The Money Plane attracts some of the world’s wealthiest and most dangerous criminals, Jack gets on board The Money Plane assuming the identity of a notorious human trafficker. Jack is joined by the tech guy on his team Trey Peterson (Patrick Lamont Jr.) Trey is posing as Jack’s business associate. Last but not least is Isabella, the bad ass female on Jack’s crew. Isabella (Katrina Norman) is on board posing as a flight attendant. When the time is right, Jack will take out the pilot and fly the plane, Trey will sneak into the server room and transfer the billion dollars in cryptocurrency to Grouch’s account and Isabella will bag up the actual cash kept in the plane’s safe. Once they have all completed their tasks they will then parachute their way out from the plane’s cargo hold. That is of course if everything goes as planned…
- Let’s Get Harry: Jack calls upon his best friend Harry (Thomas Jane, The Punisher) to look after his wife and daughter while he’s up on the Money Plane and to see if Harry can find out what went wrong with the art heist. Harry ends up being a real MVP on the ground, whether it is playing video games with Jack’s daughter, using drones to take out some of Grouch’s jobbers or digging up the dirt that the painting that Grouch hired Jack to steal was ALREADY owned by Grouch… yes, Grouch was the one who set up Jack!
- Plan B: The revelation that Grouch set Jack up on the art heist and is probably doing it again with this whole Money Plane job, plus the interference by an aggressive arms dealer on board the plane forces Jack and the team to go with Plan B because there was NO WAY everything was going to go as planned. Darius Grouch is not a fan of this change in plans, but something tells me Robin Hood would approve.
2020’s Money Plane had a retro feel to it. If you told me there was a PM Entertainment movie released 25 years ago about a professional thief and his crew robbing a casino in the sky, I would believe you and ask you where I could watch.
Casting a professional wrestler turned actor would have fit the PM Entertainment mold too. Admittedly I have not seen all of Adam Copeland’s movie work, but Money Plane felt like a step up from his work with WWE Studios. Copeland did get to show off some of the skills he learned from his time in the WWE ring during his cockpit fight with the co-pilot.
Kelsey Grammer proved he could be an effective villain dating back to his voice work as Sideshow Bob on The Simpsons. But in Money Plane, Grammer proved that he could have easily played the villain in one of the major action blockbusters of yesteryear… he probably would have too but he was getting that sweet Fraser Crane money for damn near 20 years so he really didn’t need the movie work.
If you really need some sweet Bonus Bullet Points, read on…
- Familiar Faces: Denise Richards (Starship Troopers) played Jack’s wife Sarah and she is on the screen for less than 5 minutes… Al Sapienza (Acceleration) plays the Money Plane’s bookkeeper and WHOA! is that Joey Lawrence as the Money Plane’s concierge?! You better believe it!
- If You Ever: …wanted to see Matthew Lawrence (AKA the son from Mrs. Doubtfire) play a game of Russian Roulette, then Money Plane is the movie for you.
- Disturbing Quote: “Whatever you want to wager on, the Money Plane has you covered. You want to bet on a dude fucking an alligator… Money Plane.” – Darius Grouch
- Triple Duty: Andrew Lawrence was the director of Money Plane, one of the writers of the screenplay and played Iggy another one of Jack’s guys on the ground.
