747 - Raubüberfall in den Wolken

It's a heist movie. Sure, the idea's not original, and you can predict roughly what's going to happen as soon as you meet the players; but it's still good fun.

There are very few big-name stars, which helps a great deal - if you see Bruce or Mel, you know he's going to come out on top, and here there's just a little bit of doubt.

I was repeatedly reminded of The Italian Job - particularly in the "you're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off" scene (it doesn't use that line, but you'll know the scene when you get to it); it's a shame that this didn't get the publicity that the remake of that film did, as I found it much more enjoyable.

The special effects aren't bad. They're not hugely flashy as on films with bigger budgets, but they do the job; most of the action takes place at night, which certainly helps with the bluescreening. The technicalities are a bit iffy, but not as wildly implausible as usual for Hollywood; they may actually have got a competent technical advisor on this one.

Not an intellectually engaging movie, but a good choice for a relaxed evening in.

Basically that scene in Cliffhanger where they steal the money from a plane in mid-air, except in this case it's most of the movie. It's not as terrible as it is predictable, but it's very direct to video quality will probably frustrate more than it charms. Henriksen bookends the action by mostly standing around, while Lorenzo gets lost in the crowd most of the time. The early 2000's look and presentation will probably give off some nostalgia vibes these days, although it might be more along the lines of what were they thinking?

The only reason any of the hundred or so users watched this movie was because they belong to the crew, were friends to the crew, or were obsessive fans of either Lance Henriksen or Lorenzo Lamas. I personally follow the "cult of Lance", so I was disappointed to see that despite being the headliner, it's in name only. Playing rich criminal Newcastle, Lance is a joy to watch but all of his screen time is relegated to the beginning of the movie. Newcastle sets up a 747 heist which includes Ketchum (Lamas) and a bunch of forgettable characters. The biggest shock to this viewer was that the pre-heist scenes were not all that bad. With the exception of somewhat obnoxious and rather confused looking Aviva Gale, who times every line with the finesse of a grade school play actress, acting was decent all around, and none of the lines really made me cringe.

But once the heist occurs, the movie falls asleep. Not only is their plan the most ridiculous thing ever captured on film, but it's dragged out for far too long. This isn't a very deep movie, and you have to fill out your 90 minutes, but these scenes are so boring I nearly nodded off at two in the afternoon. One particular sequence in which we watch each and every one of the characters perform the same task over and over again is especially difficult to get through. The movie's name is "Rapid Exchange", but the exchange is far from rapid - it's overlong and bloated to extremes. Perhaps it would have worked if any of the characters had real personalities, but come on, there's only so much you can ask out of a straight-to-video movie airing of Showtime Extreme.

Thankfully, there are several laughs, intentional and unintentional (Lorenzo Lamas is seemingly a master of disguise, which makes for a couple of incredibly bizarre scenarios), and Lance returns in the film's end, albeit for a brief period of time. It's a bad movie, and I probably didn't have to tell you that myself, but it's far from the worst thing I've ever seen. I wouldn't put it too high on the list of Henriksen films, since he's been in some real gems with greater screen time, and either way the movie loses a lot of steam once the heist begins, but the best thing I can say for Rapid Exchange is that the last two films I watched before it were the mainstream Hostage and the overrated, pretentious Crash - and this was better than both.

Excellent action movie with an original plot. I've never seen a plot like this where money is stolen in midair and the good guys come out on top. The musical score was outstanding and helped move the movie along at a real good pace, especially during the action sequences. The locations sequences where different too, I believe most of the film was filmed in Europe. I would enjoy seeing another movie of this type with the same actors and actress. The movie moved along at a good pace and was never boring. Maybe some of the interior sets were a little bit of a stretch for the imagination being inside an aircraft, but I felt overall they fit appropriately into the movie.

The acting was so bad that is so difficult to believe in a movie with so crazy ideas. The expressions of the guards and their reactions were so bland that not even rookie actors in a high school play are so unbelievable.

So much money on a plane an such lousy and so few guardians on board. Okay a 747 is a huge plane, but you don't transport that amount of money so frequently as to have such an elaborate electronic equipment and a vault on board to "safeguard" the valuables. And also the interior of the "vault" is so unrealistic with high ceilings and very ample rooms, you are not inside a building, but a plane and don't have the luxury of empty spaces.

Blowing a hole on the side of a flying plane is no small issue but here the plane keeps flying as if nothing happened. There are so many inconsistencies that made me gag.