After making a speech in Moscow vowing never to negotiate with terrorists, United States President James Marshall (Harrison Ford) boards Air Force One to fly home with his family and advisers. Unfortunately, the President's plane has some unwelcome guests. A group of terrorists led by Ivan Korshunov (Gary Oldman) hijack the plane. Feigning an escape, the President stows away in the aircraft and faces a race against time to save his family and everybody else on board.

You would have thought that a cynical Brit like myself wouldn't like a jingoistic movie where the US President fights nasty foreign types when they take over his plane. The whole patriotic angle just gives the movie a corny charm. It helps that the President is played by Harrison Ford, so you know that the President is a stone-cold badass.

I always wonder why the Brits never get movies involving figures of authority kicking ass like this. It would be hilarious to see the Queen beating up the baddies in a movie if they decided to invade Buckingham Palace. Maybe we Brits don't get these type of movies because such obvious patriotism makes us cringe. I am an unrepentant Royalist, but I have to admit that sometimes all that flag waving stuff seems a bit much.

This is a 90's action movie, so of course Gary Oldman is playing the villain. I don't know if I like him better as Korshunov or Zorg from The Fifth Element. Both men have funny accents, but only Zorg has a funny haircut. Korshunov has the mandatory evil goatee and tends to shout more. I know that Dracula isn't an action movie villain, but we can't mention 90's movie baddies played by Gary Oldman without mentioning the Count. Dracula had a funny accent and was pretty hammy to top it off. Let's just say that all three are pretty good villains.

There are plenty of other famous faces in the cast as well. Glenn Close is the Vice President. Dean Stockwell of Quantum Leap fame is the Secretary of Defence (oh, boy!). William H. Macey is one of the President's advisers, Major Caldwell. All three do pretty well in rather minor roles. I used to love Quantum Leap, so I'm always happy to see Dean Stockwell in things.

My rating: 3.5 stars