Air Force One (film)

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Air Force One
Directed by Wolfgang Petersen
Produced by Armyan Bernstein
Gail Katz
Wolfgang Petersen
Jonathan Shestack
Written by Andrew W. Marlowe
Starring Harrison Ford
Gary Oldman
Glenn Close
Wendy Crewson
William H. Macy
Music by Jerry Goldsmith
Distributed by Beacon Pictures
- USA -
Columbia Pictures
- non-USA -
Buena Vista International (except Australia)
- Australia -
Village Roadshow Pictures
Release date(s) July 25, 1997
Running time 124 min.
Language English
Budget $85,000,000 (estimated)
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile
Terrorist Ivan Korshunov (Gary Oldman) confronts the President of the United States (Harrison Ford).
Terrorist Ivan Korshunov (Gary Oldman) confronts the President of the United States (Harrison Ford).

Air Force One is a 1997 action film starring Harrison Ford as James Marshall, the President of the United States, and directed by Wolfgang Petersen.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

President James Marshall (Ford), on a visit to Moscow, has just told the world in a speech that the United States does not negotiate with terrorism. Three weeks earlier, the combined special forces of the United States and the Russian Federation had captured the tyrannical leader of Kazakhstan, General Ivan Radek in the capital city of Astana.

His visit to Moscow complete, the President is now on his way home to Washington in Air Force One. However, Kazakh neo-nationalists have boarded the aircraft in the disguise of the journalists they killed, and they hijack the aircraft; the President is rushed to his escape capsule, over his objections about his family, and the capsule is launched before the terrorists can stop it. Meanwhile, the pilot and co-pilot are attempting to land the aircraft at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, even as the terrorists attempt to break into the cockpit. When the cockpit door is finally forced, the aircraft is virtually touched down but still moving fast. The pilots are killed and a terrorist attempts to take off again, swinging wildly at high speed around the airfield and barely clearing obstructions as it lifts off. The aircraft then comes under escort from USAF fighters which take off from Ramstein Air Base.

The Vice President of the United States Kathryn Bennett is flown in to the White House meeting with the Defense Secretary Walter Dean and COTJC General Northwood. The terrorists phone Bennett and order that Radek be released or they kill a hostage every half-hour.

The terrorists now uyt all believe that they failed to capture the President, but he is still aboard and in hiding; the team sent to recover him from his capsule find it empty. The terrorists shoot National Security Advisor Jack Doherty. The President enters the cargo bay and finds a satellite phone which he uses to call the White House, but not remembering the direct phone number, has to use the main public number; the switchboard operator is convinced the caller is a prankster and says she will trace the call; it is a satellite phone under contract with the State Department.

The call is sent to the crisis room where the Vice President is coordinating operations. She has been faced with a nearly impossible decision -- to give in to terrorist demands to release Radek or sacrifice the dignity of the United States and the lives of the First Family, the wife and daughter now being held by the terrorists.

With technical help by phone, the President jumps circuitry to cause the aircraft to dump fuel. The President arranges to subdue guards on the room where the staff are being held, and gets one woman out who helps him send a fax to the White House to prepare a mid-air refuelling at a low altitude at which people can safely bail out through the rear.

A number of people get off the plane during the fueling operation, but the terrorists discover what's happening and break off from the refuelling plane, which explodes. After Marshall's family is taken hostage, he orders the release of Radek. After a struggle, the president kills the remaining terrorists along with their leader and utters the famous line, "GET OFF MY PLANE!". Following the death of the terrorists, the President calls to tell the White House he and his family are safe and Radek is shot as he leaves the prison. USAF F-15 fighters, who had broken away from Air Force one when the plane entered Kazhak airspace, return to protect the Air Force One from enemy fighters. A USAF Pararescue C-130 Hercules is then sent to rescure the president and his remaining staff, as Air Force One is badly damaged from the dogfight and not able to land. The president's family is removed from Air Force One during the rescue. However, as the president is about to leave the plane, the head of the President's Secret Service detail, Gibbs, reaveals himself as the traitor and kills a USAF Pararescue Jumper from the rescue plane, as well as the Air Force Advisor, Major Caldwell. As Gibbs and the president fight over the strap that will get them off the plane, Marshall knocks him out for a few seconds. Marshall manages to get off onto the USAF rescue C-130 and Gibbs is killed in the crash.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Box-Office

This Movie was one of Ford`s last notable box office success in recent years. Air Force One was a success earning $172,650,002 at the US Box Office.


[edit] Weapons

[edit] Aircraft

[edit] Trivia

  • Kevin Costner developed the film but decided to pursue post-production on The Postman instead. He personally offered the role to Harrison Ford.
  • Many people believe that "Air Force One" refers to a single airplane. "Air Force One" is actually the call sign of any U.S. Air Force aircraft in which the President rides. In fact, the rescue plane at the end, Liberty 24, changes its call sign to Air Force One, signaling to the cabinet in Washington that the President is safely on board. Despite this fact, there are only two planes maintained by the Air Force exclusively for use by the President as Air Force One.
  • The prison scenes where General Radek is being held captive were filmed in Mansfield, Ohio at the Ohio State Reformatory, which has been used in other films including The Shawshank Redemption.
  • The opening scene features parachuters landing on the "Presidential Palace" in Kazakhstan. The palace is actually Severance Hall, home of the Cleveland Orchestra, on the campus of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.
  • The exterior flyover shots that were said to take place at Ramstein Air Base actually were shot at Rickenbacker Air Force Base near Columbus, Ohio
  • When Radek is being released the radio of the aircraft depicts the men at Radek's prison singing L'Internationale, the most common communist and socialist anthem in the world.
  • The Moscow Airport scenes were shot at Los Angeles International Airport.
The Boeing-747 leased and painted in the Air force One livery in the film
The Boeing-747 leased and painted in the Air force One livery in the film
  • Air Force One was shot in open matte format.
  • The film features four future stars of 24: Xander Berkeley, and recurring guest stars Glenn Morshower (seasons 1 - 5) (who, coincidentally, plays a Secret Service Agent in both projects), an uncredited Timothy Carhart (season 2), and Wendy Crewson (season 3), who in both projects played the love interest/wife of the President. Also Bill Smitrovich, who played General Northwood in the film, was a guest star for one episode of 24's fourth season. Oleg Taktarov played a Russian terrorist during Day 5. Mark Thompson regularly plays a reporter on 24.
  • To that end, Morshower had a recurring role as a member of the joint chiefs on The West Wing. Glenn Close, Philip Baker Hall, Thom Barry, Berkeley, Tom Everett, Elya Baskin, Spencer Garrett, Albert Owens, Thomas Crawford, Don McManus, E.E. Bell, Allan Kolman and Lee Faranda all had guest spots on the program.
  • Originally, the filmmakers hired Randy Newman to compose the score for the film. Unsatisfied with the results and with only three weeks left until the film had to be completed, the filmmakers hired Jerry Goldsmith to write a replacement score. Because of the time crunch, Goldsmith hired Joel McNeely to compose a handful of tracks, most notably the climactic dog fight. (Goldsmith later said he would never take on another replacement score with such little time available.) None of McNeely's music appears on the official soundtrack. Bootleg recordings of Newman's original score have circled around the Internet.
  • The sets were reused for the NCIS episode "Yankee White," with Mark Harmon saying "I saw all this in a Harrison Ford movie" when Sasha Alexander told him the plane's plans were top-secret.
  • In Scary Movie 3, the President asks himself, "I wonder what President Ford would have done," only to reveal a portrait of Harrison Ford, a possible reference to this movie.
  • In the Situation room, Secretary of Defence Walter Dean says "I'm in charge here" even though VP Bennett is present. Dean claims that he is second in command in the military, however the Military Chain of Command goes:

[edit] Rating

R - for violence

[edit] Goofs

  • Viewers are given a detailed tour of the aircraft and its systems; both real and fictional. Most notable among the departures from reality include the fact that the real Air Force One has no parachute ramp and does not carry a known escape capsule (however, many details about the craft are classified, so the possibility that the real Air Force One carries an escape capsule is present), and that automatic weapon fire in the corridors of the aircraft would quickly shred its aluminum skin and ruin its aerodynamics(although in the commentary Wolfgang Peterson states that it is bullet proof therfore firing weapons could happen on board). Contrary to popular belief, however, it would not necessarily result in instant death for all aboard; it would merely force a quick landing. Given that it has been said Air Force One could withstand the electromagnetic pulse of a thermo-nuclear explosion, the aircraft may very well have bulletproof skin and therefore be able to withstand at least small-arms fire. Although the producers were allowed access to the real Air Force One for research purposes, the Secret Service insisted that changes be made to the layout of the film aircraft, for security reasons.
  • The producers leased an actual Boeing 747 (originally built for Japan Airlines JA8103) from Kalitta Air, an international cargo airline and painted it in the Air Force One livery. During filming at several airports, the aircraft was mistaken for an actual Air Force VC-25. The most obvious difference between the aircraft used for filming and the actual VC-25 was the lack of a hump in front of the cockpit that, in the real thing, contains the aerial refueling receptacle. Also the aircraft has Pratt & Whitney JT9D engines, while the real VC-25 has GE CF6 with the newer style cowlings, similar to the ones on the 747-400.
  • In the film, Ford offers a member of the White House domestic staff the job of Postmaster General for making a key suggestion concerning the escape from Air Force One; the character (played by Messiri Freeman) even appeared in the credits as "Future Postmaster General". However, although the United States Postmaster General was once a Presidential appointee, it had not been so for more than 25 years before the film was made; that appointment is now made by the Board of Governors of the legally-independent U.S. Postal Service.
  • When the Secretary of Defense presents the declaration of presidential incapacity for the VP to sign, it contains a list of names of all the cabinet members with their signatures, with a blank space for the VP. Several names of Cabinet members had been mentioned up to this point. Other than the VP, however, none of these names are listed on the sheet.

[edit] External links

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[edit] Analysis

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