Passenger 57

Plot synopsis:
International terrorist Charles Rane (Bruce Payne) is about to undergo plastic surgery to change his appearance in order to evade the law. Outside, federal agents and SWAT teams close in to arrest him. It becomes apparent that the plastic surgeon and his staff are in on the plan. Rane becomes suspicious and makes his escape, killing the surgeon in the process. After a harrowing chase through the city streets, Rane is finally apprehended.Haunted by the shooting death of his wife in a robbery, former police officer John Cutter (Wesley Snipes) has taken a job training flight attendants and security personnel in how to deal with dangerous situations including terrorists. During this particular session, his student is Marti Slayton (Alex Datcher), a flight attendant. When Marti disobeys his instructions, the pair have a brief confrontation.After class, Cutter sees an old friend, Sly Delvecchio (Tom Sizemore), who is there with a job offer: vice-president for the anti-terrorism unit at Atlantic International Airlines, a major carrier. Cutter is at first reluctant, but Delvecchio and the airline's president (Bruce Greenwood) manage to win him over during lunch.Cutter boards Atlantic International Flight 163 to Los Angeles... and his new job. By coincidence, one of the flight attendants on this flight happens to be Marti. Also on board is Rane, in FBI custody, headed to Los Angeles to stand trial for his terrorist activities in the past. Several of Rane's people are aboard the plane, disguised as cabin crew and passengers. When Marti performs a head count after boarding is complete, Cutter happens to be passenger number 57.Mid-flight, Rane is freed when Sabrina Ritchie (Elizabeth Hurley), disguised as a flight attendant, shoots both FBI officers dead. Several other henchmen concurrently spring into action, stealing weapons from the dead officers and taking the plane's passengers hostage. Cutter, in the lavatory during the takeover, emerges and overpowers one of Rane's men. However, Rane responds by executing one of the passengers with a Berreta M9 pistol, making Cutter feel responsible for the man's death. During the confrontation, Cutter and Marti manage to escape, taking the elevator to the plane's lower deck. After a brief fight with one of Rane's men down there, Cutter initiates a fuel dump which forces the Tri Star Lockheed L-1011 to land at a small Louisiana airfield.Cutter manages to escape from the plane, but Marti is captured by another of Rane's men. On the tarmac, Cutter is quickly apprehended by local sheriff's deputies.Meanwhile, Rane has made contact with the local sheriff, Chief Biggs (Ernie Lively). Rane promises to release half the hostages in return for fuel and takeoff clearance. Rane also tells Biggs that Cutter is one of his men, a deserter. When the deputies bring Cutter before Chief Biggs, Biggs orders him taken into custody.As the passengers are being released, Rane and two of his men make their escape. Cutter overpowers the sheriff's deputies, frees himself from his handcuffs, and gives chase on a police motorcycle. Meanwhile, a team of FBI agents arrive, headed by Dwight Henderson (Robert Hooks), who angrily informs Chief Biggs of Cutter's true identity.At a nearby fair, Cutter manages to kill one of the henchmen and engages Rane in a fight just as police reinforcements arrive. Though back in custody, Rane tells the FBI and police that his remaining team aboard the plane will begin to execute the rest of the hostages if he is not returned to the plane and granted takeoff clearance.Cutter, Henderson, and Chief Biggs work out a plan for FBI snipers to take down Rane as he boards the plane, upon which FBI teams will storm the plane and deal with his remaining underlings on board. As Rane boards the plane with an FBI escort, Cutter gives the order to fire. However, the sniper bullets hit Rane's FBI escort, not Rane. Rane's second henchman has taken the place of the FBI snipers (who are shown lying unconscious or dead behind him), and he begins firing at the assembled police and agents. He is killed during the gunfight, but not before Rane makes it safely aboard and the plane begins to take off.With the help of Chief Biggs, Cutter barely manages to get aboard the moving plane via its landing gear. Once aboard, he quickly dispatches Rane's remaining two henchmen, then engages Rane in a prolonged fistfight. Gunfire in the cabin causes explosive cabin decompression, resulting in the main cabin door exploding outward, leaving the cabin open to the sky. As Cutter and Rane continue to fight, they head closer to the open cabin door. Cutter eventually kicks Rane out through the open door, and Rane plunges to his death.The plane lands safely at the Louisiana airfield for the second time that day. Amid congratulations and celebration, Marti and Cutter make their quiet escape into the distance hand in hand.

Tags: murder, cult, violence, flashback, good versus evil, humor, action, suspenseful

Review:
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.
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..
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 story follows Wesley Snipes' airline security expert John Cutter, who whilst undertaking a flight to L.A. gets embroiled in a hostage takeover led by evil bad man with a troubled childhood, Charles Rane.
Meanwhile , Cutter contacts with his airline chiefs (Tom Sizemore and Bruce Greenwood) who want to hide the events .The film packs nonstop action , suspense , tension , lots of violence when the murders and fighting happen , being quite entertaining .
The one thing he doesn't reckon on is the presence of Passenger 57, maverick sky marshal John Cutter (Wesley Snipes), who knows a trick or two when it comes to dishing out pain to the bad guys.
Payne as the villain is as camp as Christmas; hero Snipes plays it with utter indifference; the plot rattles along with no rhyme or reason making it awfully hard to care about any of the protagonists; and the climax is such a rushed muddle of a sequence that it comes over more as an anticlimax than anything.
It's easy to knock action movies, especially if you prefer something with a bit of depth and believability, but even champions of the "big, cheesy action flick" are likely to come away from Passenger 57 feeling disappointed..
The tag; "Die Hard" on a plane is pretty much true when describing this uninspired Wesley Snipes action vehicle of the early nineties.
This entry might not make much of the dent in Snipes' portfolio, but for the undemanding just wanting some simple action moving at a brisk pace with some venomously psychotic villain performances (led by the exceptional Bruce Payne and an early part for Elizabeth Hurley) and fine support (Tom Sizemore and Ernie Lively).
In the years following its release, many of the action flicks have borrowed the basic premise of "Die Hard", making it film about a cop or someone along those lines fighting the bad guys in a limited location, whether its on a bus (Speed), a battleship (Under Siege), a hockey stadium (Sudden Death).
But when I see the kind of action this film has to offer, it doesn't make me feel like I wanna do it in real life to someone I hate.One thing that wasn't too shabby was the soundtrack and the composers skill to at least save the action scenes from falling apart completely.I wouldn't call this "boring" to watch, but it's just a little bland and uninteresting, in fact its got a less than 90 minute runtime, so you could watch it if you REALLY, REALLY don't have anything to do..
It doesn't feel like they have payed much attention to the characters, the dialogs or even the plot.Charles Rane, a terrorist feared everywhere for his many hijackings and bombings, is being transported to jail by plane.
Passenger 57 is really cheese and absolutely silly unrealistic not logical entertaining trash.This movie completely rips off Die Hard and Die Hard 2.A group of terrorist take over the plane (Die Hard 2) a terrorists took over control of Dulles International Airport in passenger 57 they took over the plane.A black man airline security is the hero in the movie, who is an ex cop now his name is John Cutter by the way the first name was rip off from John McClane - Bruce Willis Die Hard.Starts okay, but than it feels the movie is too rushed and turn's out cheese corny bad.I am just wondering how an ex cop and martial airline security and instructor can effort to buy such a beautiful car Wesley was driving?
I noticed two scenes on the end of the movie that copied the first Die Hard: After Wesley Snipes kills the third terrorist Forget (Michael Horse) on a plane he put's him in elevator and he pushes the button for up stairs the floor to the distraction Rane (Bruce Payne), Rane open's the door and he see Forget (Michael Horse) bloody dead and Marti (Alex Datcher) screams after seen Forget dead.
That scene was ripped off from Die Hard, John McClane kill's the first terrorist Tony (Andreas Wisniewski) and put's him in a elevator and send's a message down the stairs and a terrorist and a lady sees him bloody dead and the lady screams.Wesley Snipes and Bruce Payne are fighting on a plane and Wesley kick's him three times in the stomach until Rane (Bruce Payne) fall's down.
In general, though, the movie repeatedly insists on descending into silliness, with a story that makes very little sense, even as actions movies go.Snipes plays John Cutter, a security expert who's just been hired to be chief of security for Atlantic International Airlines.
The opening scenes involving terrorist Charles Rane (Bruce Payne) and his attempt to escape the FBI by fleeing a plastic surgeon's office, where he was apparently going to have his appearance changed, was pretty dramatic and established the nature of that character reasonably well.
The music sounds like it came from a 1990s soft porn made-for-TV flick, so Stanley Clarke gets a special mention for the difficult task of making a rubbish film even worse.Can't help thinking Bruce Willis would have done this better, with more humour, and probably made it watchable, which this isn't..
Need I go on?The (bad/pathetic/weak) plot: John Cutter (Wesley Snipes) is an ex-cop trained in martial arts (or some form of punching and kicking) aboard flight 163 from somewhere to somewhere else.
Mid-flight the plane is taken over by terrorists, led by Charles Rane (Bruce Payne), a man who has had some experience with Cutter in the past and who is pleased to see him onboard.
However, once again he manages to escape from the grasp of confinement and he slips away on a motorcycle to a big fairground where Charles Rane and his cronies just, by matter of convenience, happen to be!If you think this movie sounds a lot like "Air Force One," you're right.
The director, Kevin Hooks, doesn't seem to know how to carry a film along at a reasonable pace while keeping audiences' interest.The writers of this movie, Dan Gordon and David Lougery, need a little lesson in how to craft a good action movie.
That's just called garbage--a genre "Passenger 57" fits nicely into.Director: Kevin Hooks John Cutter: Wesley Snipes Charlies Rane: Bruce Payne Sly Delvecchio: Tom Sizemore Sabrina Ritchie: Elizabeth HurleyWritten by David Lougery and Dan Gordon1.5/5 stars.John Ulmer.
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.
As it stands we are left with a movie that has a cliche-ridden plot, weak characters and lacking in excitement.Bruce Payne is reasonably good as the bad guy but the 84 minutes really didn't allow him time to explore the character's possibilities.
Wesley Snipes isn't on best form here either.If you want to see a well-produced aeroplane hostage movie, take a look at Air Force One and give this a miss..
Although Wesley Snipes, an amazing action-flick star, plays the lead in this film, it lacks the entertaining qualities that his other films have.
But really, what better way to begin your action career than with this fairly by- numbers, yet highly entertaining exercise.What kind of surprised me was how good this ended up being, and how for some reason it never received the type of status or hype as other "Die Hard style" action films did, like Under Siege for example.
Passenger 57 is directed by Kevin Hooks, who up until this point had previously only worked in television, with the exception of the urban comedy Strictly Business the year before, yet did such a fantastic job handling a big budget action film his first time out.
Who could forget "Always bet on black" or "Charles Rane is not insane".The characters here are paper thin and basically stereotypes .Wesley Snipes makes a good action hero in style of Axel Foley from "Beverly Hills cop".
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.
What a bad guy!His fellow colleagues are very convincing and I like Elizabeth Hurley in the film as part of his team!Tom Sizemore was good.The music was very good and it was very 80s like which was very cool!If you like terrorist films on air planes and like Wesley Snipes and especially Bruce Payne then see Passenger 57!.
The character that yells the title quote of this review highlights the general stupidity of the entire premise, while Snipes (an air security chief who's afraid of flying) attempts to leave by cutting it's fuel then jumping off.About 20 minutes later, after a vaguely entertaining if pointless run-around a fairground, Wesley gets back on the hijacked plane - by driving a car parallel to it's takeoff then jumping on the front wheel in mid air.
All this far-fetched, testosterone-fuelled daftness irritated me when I first saw the film upon it's release, but seeing it all again I've come to realise that maybe Passenger 57 is more fun if you don't take it so seriously.Okay, this is treadmill stuff for Snipes - Rising Sun had a decent plot and I think he gives a better performance when camp, as in Demolition Man, but here he does sort of okay in a very silly film.
Now John is forced to deal with the dangerous situation.Directed by Kevin Hooks (Fled) made an reasonably entertaining action-thriller, which it is basically "Die Hard" on a plane.
The terrorists who seize the plane appear to have been transported from Die Hard, down to Eurotrash psychopath Charles Rane (Bruce Payne), played in stereotypical fashion by the actor.We get the normal blend of suspense, thrills, action, and just enough pauses for witty dialogue between hero and villain.
It was 1992 and Wesley Snipes was a hot actor but he had yet to show off his action movie talents until Passenger 57.The Die Hard-esque bad guy Charles Rane (Bruce Payne) was an international terrorist in the hands of the FBI.
The film has an excellent cast starring Wesley Snipes as John Cutter, Bruce Payne as Charles Rane, Tom Sizemore as Sly Delvecchio, Alex Datcher as Marti Slayton, Elizabeth Hurley as Sabrina Ritchie, Michael Horse as Forget and Marc Macaulay as Vincent.
Wesley Snipes acting as Airline Security Expert John Cutter is absolutely brilliant and his Martial Arts moves were awesome.
There are many more things that I like about this film, it's hard to say what they all are but I definitely can say that Passenger 57 is an absolutely brilliant Wesley Snipes film.
In Passenger 57 when John Cutter is on the plane wanting help he is seated holding a book called The Art of War. The film the Art of War starring Wesley Snipes is also an excellent film with action and awesome fight scenes.
Wesley Snipes is a real hoot as the chop-socky airline security expert who tangles with British baddie Bruce Payne in places like inside the plane itself to a tarmac area to even a carnival fair.
Aiding Snipes is pretty flight attendent Alex Datcher and airport manager Tom Sizemore, and in Payne's corner is soon-to-be popular supermodel Elizabeth Hurley, who plays a beautiful-yet-deadly terrorist posing as a stewardess."Passenger 57" is a great action flick with cool fight scenes and loud pyrotechniques.
This picture was in released in theaters on November 10 1992 starring Wesley snipes as John Cutter, Bruce Payne as Charles Rane, and Elizabeth Hurley as Sabrina Ritchie.
It's an enjoyable action-packed thriller with some nifty action and a great lead under the superb charisma of Wesley Snipes.Instead of a high-rise on an airport, the film this time takes place on an airplane, and the hero once again is a cop, this time is named John Cutter (Snipes), which actually is a decent substitute for Bruce Willis' John McLane.
As a matter of fact, many questions in logic can be asked all throughout PASSENGER 57, but it's not twice as much fun as the film's action-packed energy, as well as toying with one action movie cliché after another.Of course Rane escapes and takes over the entire plane.
Its a tight action movie that is very fun to watch with beers and friends.A weird detail i noticed..Wesley Snipes was in the "Bad!" music video facing off against Micheal Jackson.
Playing the title role in Passenger 57 is airline security expert Wesley Snipes who is on board a flight where known terrorist Bruce Payne is being transported to face justice.
This movie has a lot of action packed thriller, and the actors performances were absolutely terrific.Wesley Snipes surely kicks some terrorist ass, with martial arts moves and he had a great acting.
Passenger 57 (1992) *** (out of 4) An airline security adviser (Wesley Snipes) finds himself on board a plane that gets taken over by a notorious hijacker (Bruce Payne).
Snipes is John Cutter, a tough, kung-fu-fighting airlinesecurity expert who is forced to take on a scary terrorist namedRane (played by Bruce Payne, an actor that makes Alan Rickman'scharacter from "Die Hard" look like the fairy god-mother!) onand off board a jumbo jet.
There was plenty of action and one of Wesley Snipes great Classic films Enjoy..
Also, Lead-Star Wesley Snipes, puts up a terrific act!'Passenger 57' Synopsis: An airline security expert must take action when he finds himself trapped on a passenger jet when terrorists seize control of it.'Passenger 57' is pure popcorn entertainment.
OK,i won't waste much time getting into the specifics of the film.here's all you really need to know.great action with superb fight scenes.awesome twisted villain.
Wesley snipes plays the lead character, a no nonsense,kick ass terrorist buster.Bruce Payne portrays the truly evil baddie named Charles Rayne who has hijacked a plane which Snipes character just happens to be on.too bad for for Rayne.
Wesley Snipes plays John Cutter, an airplane security expert who finds himself in a Die Hard situation, seems Bruce Payne has taken over the friendly skies and Snipes is the only one who can take on the terrorists, in other words Die Hard on an air plane.
This isn't a bad film but it isn't exactly a great film either; Wesley Snipes does a good job as airline security expert John Cutter who is in the wrong place at the right time, Bruce Payne is okay as the psychotic terrorist and Alex Datcher is fairly forgettable as the feisty stewardess.
Once back on the plane Cutter confronts Rane one last time with the inevitable results on expects from this sort of film.This isn't a film I'd go out of my way to see but it is okay if you have eighty minutes to kill and want some fairly mindless action.
Airline security expert John Cutter(Wesley Snipes)is on a routine flight when he must rescue hostages on board from a group of terrorists led by mad bomber Charles Rane(Bruce Payne).
Wesley Snipes is airline security specialist Cutter, who is onboard a passenger flight when it is hijacked by British terrorists trying to escape the FBI (Bruce Payne as Charles Rane (who falls mainly on the plane), and a strikingly beautiful Elizabeth Hurley as his Bad Girl).
The acting is OK, Snipes is alright although the script could have used a few more one-liners to lighten his character up a bit, Payne is a decent villain while Hurley (I was just reading her IMDb bio where it says she claims she hasn't watched TV since 1979!!!!!!) looks hot in this & is probably the only time she has played a villain.Passenger 57 is a decent enough 90's action flick, it's nothing overly special & there are better films out there with similar plots, Executive Decision (1996) anyone?
Snipes is a counter-terrorist type who's a passenger on a plane that's taken over by terrorists, led by stock bad guy Bruce Payne.