Bullet Points: Air Rage
2001’s Air Rage is not going to be mistaken for IMDb’s most beloved movie anytime soon. Multiple users have roasted the film in the user reviews section and as a result Air Rage (as of this writing) has a 3.3 IMDb rating.
It is my belief that many of the users that rated Air Rage a dismal 1, would have actually upped it to a 2 if the movie had a better title than Air Rage. What exactly is air rage? Is it a take off on road rage? If so, that makes no sense… there are no red lights in the sky to get stuck at, I have never heard of cockpit to rudder traffic and I think it would be a long shot if one plane cut off another or one plane couldn’t get around another.
If you want to get around reading this review of Air Rage, here is where you click the back button and/or click some of the other links on the site…
- Psych!: Colonel John Sykes of the USMC (played by Cyril O’Reilly of Porky’s fame) and his men have been court martialed after their attempt to rescue three of their fellow Marines in an unidentified war zone, ended up in the destruction of a village and the slaughter of innocent people. Sykes believe he has cut a deal where a guilty plea by him, would get his men off the hook (since they were just following his orders). He men would be discharged and receive all benefits coming to them, while Sykes would serve 10 years in prison… but when the trial rolls around General Harlan Prescott (Alex Cord, To Be the Best) doesn’t care about any deal. Sykes’ men are dishonorably discharged and will receive zero benefits. And Sykes will be spending the rest of his life in Ft. Leavenworth.
- Contingency Plan: Say what you will about Sykes, but he has some damn loyal men. He also had the foresight to believe the military brass would screw him. Sykes’ men end up attacking the prison van transporting Sykes, kill the MPs that were escorting Sykes and then rescuing their beloved leader from a life behind bars… But freedom isn’t enough for Sykes, he is looking for revenge! It was at this point in the movie that I started to ask myself some questions…
- Is This Normal?: The next time we see General Prescott he is headed to an important anti-terrorism summit and carrying a CD-ROM filled with extremely sensitive information on all of the United States’ deep cover operatives around the world. Do high ranking members of the military fly commercial when they are on official business? This didn’t seem right to me. I also could not help but wonder if Dulles Airport fell on hard times… the “tower” depicted in Air Rage is a huge downgrade from the one depicted in Die Hard 2… in fact all the tower scenes look like they could have been shot in a random office at Phoenician Entertainment. These are probably the least of the accuracy issues if you are an aviation enthusiast.
- Where’s Ice-T?: So Sykes and his men pose as passengers on the same flight that Prescott is on and it isn’t long before we get ourselves a Die Hard scenario with Sykes taking control of the plane. All the civilian passengers are sent down to the cargo hold and Sykes is demanding the typical massive amount of money. It’s at this point I couldn’t help but say, “I was told Ice-T was in this movie”… 39 minutes in, Ice-T’s Matt Marshall and his Black Ops team known as The Wolves that included Deadman, Cujo and Banzai make their first appearance. The Wolves hop in their stealthy Cobra Night Raven that will allow them to board the commercial airline in mid-air. Where Black Ops teams are concerned, The Wolves are among the worst. Minutes after boarding, all but Matt Marshall are killed (and Matt took a bullet to the leg and is far from 100%) and ends up getting help from Kelly the flight attendant, who not only managed to evade Sykes and company, she took out one of the men before she meets up with Matt.
- Is Kelly the Fly in the Ointment?: If you looked at the cover for Air Rage and knew it was a Die Hard inspired movie, you would likely assume that Ice-T was going to be the John McClane fly in John Sykes’ ointment… but that’s not the case. Kimberly Oja’s Kelly is the McClane in this movie. I have to admit I got invested in the Kelly character as preposterous as it is that she is more effective than Black Ops guys. Spoiler Alert… Kelly ends up having to land the plane in a classic talk-down landing scenario. Even though I knew how it was going to turn out, I still found myself on the edge of my seat and hoping for the best or maybe I was just excited I knew the movie was almost over.
I’ve seen plenty of “worst movie ever” comments in regards to Air Rage and anytime I see anyone use that bit of hyperbole, I can’t help but wonder how many movies they have actually seen… I have seen a ton of movies in my lifetime and I know there are worse movies than Air Rage.
Air Rage had plenty of flaws, some of which I called out… but this was direct to video movie meant to provide some mindless entertainment, it was never meant to be a commercial pilot or black ops rescue training video.
I feel like I have trained longtime Bulletproof Action readers to know this is the point in one of my reviews where we go to the Bonus Bullet Points…
- Familiar Faces: What Air Rage lacked in originality it tried to make up for with stock footage and familiar faces like Glynn Turman (Gremlins) who played Ted Bigelow, the head air traffic controller at Dulles… Gil Gerard played NSA Agent Victor Quinn. I’ll always remember Gil from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, although he looks more like Uncle Buck Rogers in this one… Jack McGee (Scrooged) plays John Simpson, the air traffic controller who has to talk Kelly down in Atlanta… Last but not least, is Steve Hytner (aka Kenny Bania from Seinfeld) who plays an obnoxious passenger filling the William Atherton asshole spot for Air Rage.
- Memorable Quote: “That’s Miss Sweet Cheeks to you, asshole!” – Kelly
- If Playing Possum Was a Sport: …Ice-T’s Matt Marshall would be the champion of the world.
- Don’t Let Them Name Fool You: Air Rage was directed by Ed Raymond… or was it? Raymond was actually an alias used by Director Fred Olen Ray.
