Review of Air Force One (1997) by Martin D — 08 Mar 2010

The film begins with an American Special Forces unit capturing General Ivan Radek (Jurgen Prochnow), the dictator of Kazakhstan. Radek's regime had caused an enormous amount of bloodshed for Kazakhstan, and there was word that his stockpiling of nuclear weapons would have plunged the world into a second cold war. His capture was made through the joint cooperation of President James Marshall (Harrison Ford), and Russian President Petrov (Alan Woolf).

Several weeks after the capture of Radek, President Marshall visits Moscow, along with his wife Grace (Wendy Crewson) and daughter Alice (Liesel Matthews). While Marshall is praised for his help in freeing Kazakhstan from Radek's grip, Marshall surprises everyone (including his own men) by deviating from his planned speech. Marshall says that they were too slow to act, and vows to not have such a thing happen again.

Marshall, his family, and his men are then returned to Air Force One, which takes off on its return trip to Washington D.C. Unknown to the President or anyone else, a rogue secret service agent named Gibbs (Xander Berkeley) has secretly allowed access into the plane several men who are supporters of Generak Radek. The men, led by Ivan Korshunov (Gary Oldman), don bulletproof vests and manage to gain weaponry that is used by the Secret Service. In the chaos, Marshall is ordered into an escape pod in the cargo hold.