The movie, not the actual aircraft itself.

Since I've found my undergrad thesis - (here and here) - and "I've been considering a return to school, I get the weirdest things floating in my head.

I probably would've used this film when I wrote my thesis, but it was just out in the theatre when I was working on the research, thus making it's inclusion problematic.



So, watching this movie, it's a good movie, but does still harbor those elements of 'unrealistic', just like any other. First, seriously, only Harrison Ford would be the President with balls. Especially as compared to the president from Escape from LA who was a huge chickenshit.

But, forget for a moment that we're talking about an action film here. What goes on in this story?

Air Force One - the jet responsible for carting the POTUS around when he needs a ride somewhere far (ie: outside the Beltway) - is hijacked by a group of Russian radicals who don't much like that 'Mother Russia' has been broken down into smaller pieces. These radicals murdered a press crew and took their identities in order to bypass security to get on the plane. This, even pre-9/11, would take an amazing amount of pre-planning, not to mention, intimate knowledge of the President's schedule and other information about what was planned and who would be on board.

In the case of Air Force One, a Secret Service agent, for whatever insane reason (most likely greed), works with the Russians to get them on the plane and get them access to weapons. Keep in mind, the Secret Service agents who are selected to guard the President, then put his life ahead of their own, to the point of dying if necessary. It's their job. However, they also have a great deal of knowledge about the intimate workings inside the President's itinerary. Typically, I would assume they don't know everything, to keep certain pieces of information safe, the fewer people who have all of the pieces, the harder is to get the whole picture. I suppose that still offers up grounds for the greedy to want to commit treason to cash in. That also makes them idiots.

And we'll leave out the fact that Gary Oldman plays one wicked-ass bad guy, because that just gets in the way. His agenda is pretty typical of movies like this - 'gimme what I want or I kill everyone in the way until either I get it, or I'm dead'. Fortunately, he's made a little smarter than some of the 'bad guys' in these movies - he's got a pilot, someone who knows aircraft communications systems, etc. But, obviously, he's still poised to lose.

One of the things I love about this movie, is that a secretary (assistant?), whose name the president may not even remember, steps up to tell him that the fax machine should still work. Of course, the fax they send sits on the fax machine for a while, because no one seems to be paying attention to it during the crisis.

Now, for some of those 'political' and 'governmental' things that happen - there's a Press Conference about a story that leaked to the press that the plane had crashed; they call in the Attorney General to interpret the Constitution to settle a debate over who's in charge in this crisis - the Secretary of Defense or the Vice President; US military aircraft are deployed to accompany the aircraft; the majority of the Presidential Cabinet is in the Situation Room at the White House discussing what should be done in this highly unusual situation.

Then, on top of everything else, the Sec of Defense is trying to get the Pres declared incapacitated so he (or the VP) can be 'in charge' and make decisions, as opposed to the President making a number of calls about the situation from his position on the hijacked aircraft. Realistically, assuming the Pres didn't stuff himself in the escape pod and take is leave, I think the cabinet would have long-since declared the Pres incapable of 'being the Pres' and would have taken control, despite his background in military operations and high-stress situations. And the Sec of Defense makes a very good point - in the situation in question, the Pres is making decisions, not as the President, but as a husband and father - very different mindsets. There's also the fact that the President's mind-set shifts to a more political one once he's in office (and I only leave it as 'he' since there hasn't yet been a female president), the military training, while still there, is out of shape. I find it unlikely that the President would be able to pull off what Marshall does in Air Force One. It's more likely that a Secret Service agent would do those things - but that doesn't make for good cinema, so Harrison Ford gets to be the hero.

And, since Harrison Ford is the hero, he gets the coolest line of the film: "Get off my plane!" said just before he throws Gary Oldman off Air Force One, then scrambles to the cockpit to land the plane, since earlier he shot the pilot.

Overall, the film is entertaining, but it's lacking in potential realism regarding the President. Well, unless Indiana Jones becomes president, but I don't see that happening.


ETA: I can't believe I almost forgot the most fantastical rescue operation in history - a zip-line between two planes and parajumpers sliding the remaining hostages across the line to the military aircraft. Now, I'm sure this could, theoretically, work, it just seems really far-fetched, especially the pres dangling from the zip line out the back of the plane.