Passager 57

I tried to watch this movie without thinking at all and to just relax but it wasn't the easiest thing in the world to do.

A few things made this movie really great: Wesley Snipes, the music, some of the lines, the action.

Other than those, the movie could have been much better.

Wesley Snipes plays John Cutter, a former airline security expert who is flying on a plane when terrorists happen to take over. Bruce Payne plays Charles Rane AKA "Rane of Terror", a terrorist who leads the attack on the plane. Tom Sizemore plays Sly Delvecchio, Cutter's buddy. Thats all I care to mention actor-wise.

I think Snipes could have used a lot more screen-time or at least more back-story. I barely got to know him.

The movie was in ten places at once, which made it extremely difficult to follow along. However, I still enjoyed the film.

Not a bad mindless movie, but try not to think too much.

6/10.

"Passenger 57" is one of the many films that followed in the wake of the action film that re invented the genre, 1988's "Die Hard" with Bruce Willis in the lead. When I first saw P57, rented on video in the mid nineties, I wasn't expecting a re-run of Die Hard, but i was pleasantly surprised at how enjoyable an action flick it was.

Wesley Snipes and Bruce Payne spark well off each other as the troubled hero and psychotic villain. They are given competent support by the rest of the cast, although one of my small complaints is how under utilised the other actors are. That said, Ernie Lively does a nice turn as the local police chief and Robert Hooks (father of director Kevin Hooks) is good as an FBI Agent.

Essentially, Passenger 57 is a solid little action movie which is well paced and has enough intriguing characters and good action scenes to keep you interested right through to the finale. The story is perhaps a little thin and the script could have used a bit more depth to develop the characters, but it's very enjoyable none the less.

Don't view this expecting a great movie, but if you have an hour and a half to kill this film is well worth a watch.

Passenger 57 is an enjoyable and rather underrated action film. Although there is not too much of a storyline, the slick action scenes combined with some very good performances from Wesley Snipes and Bruce Payne kept me entertained from start to finish.

While Passenger 57 offers nothing really new to the action genre, it does offer plenty of fast paced chaos and explosions and combined with some entertaining hand-to-hand combat skills by Snipes, it is certainly better than a lot of other standard action fares out there.

Snipes gives a very good performance as the lead and Bruce Payne is brilliant as the mentally unstable villain. The other cast are somewhat overshadowed by Snipes and Payne, but do an adequate enough job.

Overall I was very pleased by Passenger 57, so much so that it proudly belongs in my DVD collection. A very good choice for action fans and a must for Snipes fans. 8/10.

And don't forget...."Always bet on black!"

When terrorists take over a passenger plane while he is in the bathroom, it is up to an airline security specialist to thwart them in this action thriller clearly modeled on 'Die Hard'. Given the familiarity of the basic scenario, 'Passenger 57' is a surprisingly entertaining affair with Bruce Payne making for a memorable charismatic chief villain, plus there are several well coordinated action scenes that take into account the inherent claustrophobia of being in a plane. With this in mind, it seems quite uncanny how much of the action takes place outside the plane with several minutes spent on a chase through a fairground before the characters find themselves in the air once again. The dialogue is also hardly first rate with the film sorely missing the wit that Bruce Willis brought to the 'Die Hard' movies. Something interesting though is that the film is set up to be a redemption movie with protagonist Wesley Snipes haunted by the death of his wife at the hands of a criminal, and yet the film avoids setting up a near-identical scene to give him a chance to act differently, with Snipes instead having to find an alternative path to redemption. The ending feels more than a little rushed though with limited time spent on Snipes and Payne going head to head. This is an extraordinary short movie too, clocking in at just over 80 minutes, but at least it never outstays its welcome.

Wesley Snipes is about the only thing that's good in this movie. The movie starts out good with interesting situation going on inside the plane. Then the setting moves to the ground, and we see local law enforcement agency and the FBI getting involved, things gets dumb and dumber.

Why they had to abandon the airplane and go into the boring ground scene, I have no idea. They lost all the plot right there and then. The guy who escaped was absolute nobody, so it wasn't interesting even if he did escape. Movie gets worse as it progresses as even the fight scene including Wesley Snipes gets worse.

The stunt at the end was ridiculous. How can a police car catch up with a jet plane that's about to reach take off velocity ?

The fault was with the writer. The movie could have been 100% better if Wesley Snipes was allowed to sleuth around the airplane inflicting damages to the bad guys. Then it would have been a budget version of Die-hard, or maybe better, and the movie surely would have been a classic with sequels.

Too bad that they blew their opportunity, because of poor script writing.