D: Wolfgang Petersen
S: Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman, Glenn Close
Harrison Ford is not the President of the United States. But, these days
anyway, he is an icon of decency, honesty and upright morality. In the hands
of director Wolfgang Petersen, that's all he needs to be. It doesn't much
matter that no serving President of the United States has ever been involved
in a one-on-one confrontation with hordes of heavily armed terrorists, or
that even the fittest of them would barely survive an arm-wrestling tournament
with the White House Toilet Attendants. It doesn't even matter that the
current image of the President of the United States is anything but one
of decency, honesty and morality. Air Force One has an irresistible
premise: the most important aeroplane in the world is hijacked, and only
the leader of the Free World can save the day by beating the baddies to
a bloody pulp with his own two hands. It's so outrageous that it is pretty
much the best idea for an action film since Speed. It's so ludicrous
that it can only be utterly convincing, and so politically obvious that
it raises all sorts of interesting questions about the Presidency and about
the role of the cinema in its representation.
Wolfgang Petersen has consistently traded in American iconography since
coming Stateside following the massive success of Das Boot and The
Neverending Story. In Enemy Mine he played a black man (Louis
Gossett Jnr.) against a white man (Dennis Quaid) in a futuristic tale of
alien vs. human (even though the film was just a variant on John Boorman's
Hell in the Pacific.). In Shattered he played handsome actors
off against one another in a tale of superficiality and the deceptive nature
of appearances. In In the Line of Fire he harnessed everything that
was potent about Clint Eastwood's iconic identity and allowed the actor
to deliver one of the best performances of his career in one of the most
resonant political thrillers in decades. Air Force One continues
his metaphysical trip through the American political unconscious; pitting
the last dregs of red hysteria which still lurks in the darkness against
a President that never was and never could be.
The most surprising thing about it is how well it works. Not that we would
have expected less than technical excellence given the size of the budget,
the resources and the talent of its director. It boasts good actors in strong
roles, and had all the makings of a sure-fire Autumnal smash hit, especially
following one of the weakest Summers in recent memory. But the film is so
clearly concerned with playing out America's anxieties and fantasies, and
is so patently fantastical that it is a wonder the audience doesn't simply
burst into hysterics after the first few minutes.
Yet they don't. Though Ford is terribly sombre as the film opens and he
addresses the Russian Government with tight-lipped sincerity about America's
moral imperative to intervene in trouble spots 'before it's too late', he's
quickly in his State car on his way to the doomed aeroplane, where sinister
Gary Oldman has already boarded as a very unconvincingly humble Russian
journalist (you just know he's up to no good, the dastard!). Petersen keeps
things moving swiftly along before you have a chance to get beyond the basic
character tags, establishing a more than perfect First Family, and positing
only the stuffed-shirt bureaucrats as the ill-winds in democracy.
Then the fireworks begin. The film swiftly charts an exciting takeover of
the plane, and even pushes its villains to the point of premature breakdown
as they deal with some major obstacles even keeping it in the air. And then,
in true Die Hard and Passenger 57 fashion, Ford is the only
traveller unaccounted for when the hapless are herded into storage by the
armed villains. It doesn't matter at this point that he's President of the
United States. He's an icon, not a character, and he's played by the most
popular middle-aged action hero around. Strap in and get ready for a trip.
Air Force One doesn't even try to cover up its inanities. It loudly
proclaims the President to be a Vietnam veteran (twenty years ago such characters
were running amok in public parks in American motion pictures), makes the
Vice President an impotent worrier (Glenn Close, in what must rank as one
of the most humiliating roles she's ever played, Mars
Attacks! aside), has its Russian baddies spouting authentic subtitled
dialogue and political rhetoric from the hidden depths of the anti-communist
soul, and lays on the action scenes thick and fast in order to keep you
distracted from thinking about any of it. It glosses over reams of intricate
political complications in order to set things up for a simple iconic, wish-fulfillment
fantasy, and, like Independence Day before it, reaps the predictable
rewards with its willing co-consiprators in the audience.
On the performance level, Ford is good, and looks less haggard than he did
in The Devil's Own. It does make you wonder
just how many more of these character he can play however, and having seen
him playing the lovable rogue with a mercenary edge in the re-issue of the
Star Wars trilogy, makes you wonder why he does it. But he's convincing
when in combat and registers enough internal conflict to hold the character
in place without letting the iconic shell crack. Gary Oldman is equally
enjoyable as a raving psychotic. His hysteria never crosses the line into
stupidity and he has some genuinely menacing scenes, though his dialogue
reeks of many Cold War thrillers now long consigned to the political scrap
heap. Support from a cast of familiar faces including Dean Stockwell and
William H. Macy is solid, and though Glenn Close plays the part of the hapless
Vice President well, she does not come away with much dignity. Of course,
she doesn't fare half as badly as Jurgen Prochnow, who is reunited with
Petersen only for two short scenes, one of which he gets shot in.
At the end of the day, it all works so splendidly that it's very easy to
get swept away and enjoy the ride. But it does raise some questions. After
the recent bashing the White House and the Presidency has received in life
and on film (including, in the past few months, in Absolute
Power and Murder at 1600 ), it's probably
a useful representational counterbalance. But it is equally unbelievable,
and, in its own way, devalues it just as much. It's not the transparent
PR exercise that Rob Reiner's The American President was, or the
opportunistic mythology of PT-109. Nor is it the penetrating study
of the machinations of political power of All the President's Men,
or the understated and dignified look at the President as a human being
under stress in Fail-Safe. The question of how politics and political
figures should be represented on screen is probably irresolvable (or merely
a matter of personal taste). But it seems to me that in their fascination
with the debunking of the Godlike image of their leader (which has fascinated
them since open season was declared thirty years ago), the American public
is perhaps guilty of a conspiracy of delusion which allows them to fantasise
both positively and negatively on a very real and very powerful Office worthy
of serious consideration in a real and responsible manner without having
to face the real questions this masks.
Of course, faced with such evident pleasures, who is going to really worry
about such things? Air Force One is a superbly made and very enjoyable
pulp thriller which will entertain and enthral the public through its long
build up and multiple climaxes. Just don't expect to feel comforted when
it comes to watching the real-life President in action battling such unexciting
challenges as diplomacy, corruption, crime, and congress. He doesn't even
have an uzi!
Review by Harvey O'Brien copyright
1997.