Turbulence

Plot synopsis:
After Ryan Weaver is arrested in New York City for a murder that he says he did not commit, he must be transported to Los Angeles to face trial. He and another prisoner (Stubbs) are escorted by four US marshals on a Boeing 747-200 on a commercial flight. Even though it is Christmas Eve, the 747 is nearly empty, with only 11 people on board. The entire cabin is highly decorated with Christmas trees and other decorations.
During the 5 hour flight, Stubbs breaks free while using the bathroom and begins a shootout with the marshals, and at some point in the fight, a stray bullet fired from one of the Marshall's sidearms punches a hole in the fuselage, instantly triggering an explosive decompression. Amidst the chaos, the Captain is fatally shot, and the First Officer is also killed when his head slams into the yoke, disengaging the autopilot in the process and a stray bullet bores a hole in a lavatory window. Weaver frees himself and attempts to save the last remaining marshal, but fails when both Stubbs shoots the marshal dead, after being shot himself.
Weaver appears to be horrified by the ordeal, increasing the passengers' trust in him. Because of the death of the pilots, Teri Halloran, a stewardess, makes her way into the cockpit and learns she is the only one left capable of keeping the 747 from crashing. To make matters worse, the plane is heading for a Category 6 storm.
Weaver's behavior becomes increasingly erratic since he is paranoid of being sentenced to death upon landing and occasionally suffers nervous breakdowns. He then locks the passengers in the crew's cabin; and rapes and strangles Maggie, one of the other flight attendants, to death. He then calls LAX FBI control center that he threatens to crash the 747 into their facility since he is now on a suicide mission, and is wiling to do anything to avoid being arrested. His motives had become clear to Teri after she spoke, via the 747's radio, with the detective who arrested him.
Being the only hope for the 747's survival, Halloran must be instructed by radio how to land. After the plane barely survives extreme turbulence during the storm; Halloran's first attempt is unsuccessful, with the 747 skimming an office building's roof Japanese restaurant and a car park due to Weaver altering with the circuitry in the avionics bay. She then must turn the plane around and leave Los Angeles airspace. The LAX airport chief sends an U.S. Navy F-14 Tomcat Fighter jet to shoot down the 747.
Halloran begs LAX not to have her shot down as a result of her failed first attempt caused by Weaver, and insists that she can land the plane. At this point, Weaver, completely drunk and crazy, breaks into the cockpit with an axe and tries to murder her. Halloran spies one of the marshals' guns, which she uses to fatally shoot Weaver. She returns to the pilot's seat and safely lands the aircraft. Despite the boasts of Weaver that he killed them all, the other crew and passengers are found alive.

Tags: suspenseful, comedy, murder, violence

Review:
Many people are very critical of this movie-but it does have some fans,including me!Okay,the whole thing is full of absurdities-but so what!Butler takes the old "stewardess flies the plane" cliche,runs with it,and delivers an enormously entertaining slice of hokum.The formula is paired down to basics,as mad serial killer Weaver(Ray Liotta),creates havoc aboard the plane,determined it will crash into L.A.-so he can go out in a blaze of vengeful glory.All that stands in his way is plucky flight attendant Teri(Lauren Holly).The stage is set for a frantic live action "Tom and Jerry" wing ding between monstrous male psycho predator,and winsome female "prey".
Then there's Terri-cute,willowy and Bambi eyed-I found myself pretty upset seeing what poor Teri goes through in this  movie!But despite insults,threats,punches,assaults,smoke attacks and all,she has the moxie to keep going.Battered,bruised and bloodied she still looks stunning!And at the beginning,we are told some guy just broke off his engagement to THIS girl!HE must've been crazier than Weaver!.
By then, the absurdity of the whole thing had fried what few brain cells I have left.Ray Liotta is excellent as the psycho serial killer who puts on a charming Ted Bundy-like appearance for a short while before publicly showing his insanity.
An implausible but intense thrill ride with a more than competent cast.As the film opens, it is Christmas Eve, and we get our introduction to our Bad Guy, Ryan Weaver (Ray Liotta, doing the kind of character he does best).
Who cares what they had to do to get him?) In a clever bit of opening misdirection, we see shots of Bad Guy on his way to his latest target's place intercut with shots of our Heroine (waifish but not anorexic, blonde-haired-big-blue-eyed Lauren Holly) in her own place in such a way as to make us think that she is his new "girlfriend", when in fact she is not.The two do meet, however, since our Heroine is a flight attendant assigned to the Christmas Eve flight on which Bad Guy is being transported to prison to await his execution.
As the plane tosses them to-and-fro (did I mention that they're headed into a six-on-a-scale-of-one-to-six thunderstorm?) our Heroine must defend herself after being coaxed out of the cockpit by our Bad Guy. While not trying to come across as the Xena of flight attendants, Ms. Holly is determined and tough mentally and also physically when forced to fight for her life.
(Why, under these circumstances, does our psycho-but-sharp Bad Guy believe for a MOMENT that the woman he's terrorizing would have sex with him, even to save herself and the few other people on board the plane he hasn't killed?
Because it's a movie, children!) Anyway, after kicking a little Bad Guy butt and ultimately getting ahold of a Marshall's gun and killing him, our Heroine manages to land the plane.
If you just want to shut down your higher brain functions and watch a good psycho-killer-chiller, and especially if you like it when said chiller supposedly takes place on Christmas, this is highly recommended for you.
Therein lies the appeal of "Turbulence", a not-to-be-taken-seriously white knuckle ride into the realm of the ridiculous with Holly as the "Stew" who's got to save a 747 jumbo jet with a handful of passengers against all odds including one very whacked out serial killer (Liotta).
I happen to love movies that take place on airplanes, maybe because they're usually, or always about the same thing: A terrorist (or more) hijacks the plane and threatens to kill the passengers, sometimes along with the pilot.
Anyway, I had a good time the whole way through, even though I think the film could have used more characters (and complications), and a flight attendant who is a lot more smarter.
Set aboard the ultra-sophisticated Boeing 747-200, a serial killer and flight attendant battle for control of the airplane as both his mental condition and the plane's altitude deteriorate.A group of U.S. marshals is escorting two convicts aboard a nearly empty 747 on Christmas Eve.
(The copilot is taken out just as efficiently by failing to observe the fasten seat belt sign!)  After sitting back and letting them kill each other, serial killer Ryan Weaver (Liotta) fills the power vacuum and systematically secures control of the airplane.
Although it eventually makes the right decision, half the movie has already passed by that point and those who would have abandoned ship, have already hit rewind.Compared to Airport 1975, Turbulence is at once both a much bigger and a much smaller film.
The DVD should come with its' own air-sick bag, because you'll be nauseaous from the time it lifts off the runway.A thin story is anchored even more by horrible, and I mean horrible acting from both Ray Liotta and Lauren Holly.
If I was a director and wanted to make a film that set out to parody the action-thriller genre I think I would have produced something like Turbulence.It is so packed with ludicrous sequences, stereotyped characters and predictable plot lines that it becomes impossible to take it seriously.
Yes, the film was full of inconsistencies - the empty plane at Christmas, why they didn't use a smaller aircraft or bump the passengers to another airline, the bullet-hole patched with a suitcase, the failure of the oxygen masks to drop when cabin pressure was lost, the ability to hear the pilot's radio through a closed cockpit door, etc etc etc...
This isone of those movies where no-one does anything sensible, from thepilot, who, knowing that there are two violent criminals on board his'plane, hears gunshots and goes out to see what's happening, to thestewardess who's locked herself in the cabin because she KNOWS what'sgoing on, and then comes out because the bad guy tells her that herfriend is asking for her, despite the trifling fact that the cops, theFBI, and the ground crew have all told her that her friend is probablyalready dead, and they need her in the cabin to monitor what the'plane's doing or everyone will be dead anyway.
Be sure and watch how the psycho arranges the bodies of the passengers he has murdered to look like a typical airplane flight before he observes, "I'll never fly this airlines again." Also a hoot is when the runaway plane tries to land with a Ford truck attached to its wheels.
What starts off as an interesting plot for the movie turns into a rotten stuff.What i don't understand is Hollywood's obsession of letting loose psychos in every other lame situation.So there u have it all in this movie ,a bad weather ,a pilotless 747 plane, scream queen aspirant lauren holly,a few helpless passengers , FBI(woe is me ,what would Hollywood do if they never existed),a few expendable cops,not to forget its Christmas season and finally the reason for this hell ,Ray liotta as our friendly neighbourhood psycho.It pains me to see Ray liotta who acted in the phenomenal "goodfellas" to descend to such films.
I was expecting this film to be the usual Hollywood action film i.e. no character development; the ending you can see right from the beginning (that will have been used a thousand times before); and a liberal sprinkling of 'powerful moments' when the music stops and someone says something sincere.However I was pleasantly surprised, Ray Liotta was excellent, the plot was good, and the action scenes not bad.
For the rest of the flight, it's mano-a-mano between the criminal and a plucky but not-so-bright stewardess (Lauren Holly) who tries to land the plane with help from the control tower in L.A. and a pilot who attempts to talk her down.
But this movie is so blissfully unencumbered by originality, you have to wonder whether the transcripts for half a dozen other genre thrillers were ran through a computer and the script for this mess was spat out.A monkey with a typewriter hammering out nonsense for a couple of hours would still guarantee more originality than on offer here.Ray Liotta, giving one of the worst performances by any actor in any movie since the dawn of the motion picture industry, assumes he is in a pantomime as he cackles his way around the airliner, terrorising bird-like flight attendant Lauren Holly.Actually, that's doing a disservice to pantomimes.So the premise is nutter on a plane.
Liotta terrorises Holly and to make matters worse, the aircraft is flying through a severe storm and only the autopilot stops it from crashing.Aside from some good camerawork, Turbulence fails on just about every level.Ben Cross pops up as a stereotypical British airline captain who helps Holly out of her predicament while Total Recall's Rachel Ticotin is part of the assured ground crew who try to talk her down amid laughably over-the-top melodramatics.What Liotta thought he was doing is anyone's guess.
(There are Spoilers) You at first feel a bit of sympathy for convicted serial killer Ryan Weaver, Ray Liotta, who's claim of never killing anyone and being set up by a publicity hungry L.A Cop Let. Aldo Hines, Hector Elizondo.
With Weaver being by far the nicest, and most caring, person on the plane taking him back to L.A, from New York City, to face execution for the murder of five women.Weaver is kind considerate and even funny as he jokes with his US Marshall guards and the stewardesses as well as the few passenger's on the Christmas-Eve flight.
But keeps cute stewardess Teri Halloran, Lauren Holly,alive to chase her throughout the giant 747 for the remainder of the movie.You wonder just what Weaver is planing to do since he doesn't know how to fly a plane, much less a very sophisticated 747 Jumbo passenger liner.
Weaver finally loses his concentration and ends up getting a bullet right between his eyes from the very plucky Teri; after being exposed to this insane lunatic changed her mind about her life long opposition against the death penalty.The movie went from the far-fetched to the unbelievable with Teri taking the very complicated controls of the 747 and with the help of ground control, namely British Airline Captain Samuel Bowen (Ben Cross).
Teri is also tracked by a USAF fighter plane who's ordered, by ground control, to shoot up the runaway only to have the reluctant pilot blow out the stuck Ford van, making it easier for Teri to land the 747.It's hard to take the movie seriously but at the same time it's hard to turn it off since you just can't help wanting to see just how more absurd, if that's at all possible, it get's..
The plot's a mess the performance's over the top but all the better for it.Liotta a very brilliant actor really relishes this role probably because he realises how bad this movie is.
If you want to see a good movie along these lines, then watch Con Air. If you are looking for comedy on an aeroplane, then why not try "Airplane!".
It's a dumb, cliched movie, but Ray Liotta (one of my favorite actors) makes it worth watching and turns in an excellent, evil performance.
I guess this movie could pass as no-brainer entertainment, but Liotta's performance is the best thing this film has to offer..
Turbulence is very good film.Every acts very well and Lauren Holly is very good and Brenden Gleeson is really a cool bad guy!
The other film that I know of the he played nearly the same role was in Sonic Impact.You wouldn't think such a thing would happen to a handsome man.Any way Liotta is as funny as heck in this film and I've seen it many time and he just gets funnier and funnier!If you air plane disaster films this is the one to watch!.
I thought it funny that two very different films with Ray Liotta should be on at the same time (one his best, the other not  I'll let you decide which is which).
Ignoring protests of being framed, Weaver just about becomes as much of a silly, OTT villain as I have ever seen  it's almost as if Liotta was playing it for laughs and I couldn't understand why he had pitched the suave, rather creepy, unsure air he had had about him at the start  maybe the audience just needed a big bad wolf to see as a threat as opposed to someone who would make them think.
However, this doesn't mean their performances are good or even close to being any different than their past roles in films.One of the criminals who is the main antagonist is played by Ray Liotta.
TurbulenceThe word "turbulence" is just fancy airline jargon for the captain is drunk.Unfortunately, the turbulence in this thriller is the result of the pilot being murdered.Accused killer Weaver (Ray Liotta) and another convict board a Boeing 747 bound for L.A. accompanied by air marshals.When the other con attacks the marshals, he inadvertently kills the pilot and copilot.Now it's up to a flight attendant, Teri (Lauren Holly), to take the controls of this hulking vessel.In addition to steering it through a deadly electrical storm, and her general lack of landing knowledge, Teri must also contend with Weaver's continuous attempts to sabotage the plane.With a laughable plot, asinine acting and numerous implausible situations, Turbulence is a trip best traveled with plenty of airsickness bags.Besides, a better escape plan for an air prisoner would be to act drunkenly belligerent until they kick you off the plane.Red Lightvidiotreviews.blogspot.ca.
Cool, handsome, smooth talking serial killer, Ryan Weaver (Ray Liotta) hamming it up here, boards a plane with another bad dude, and their two escorting officers.
1st watched 3/1/2009  4 out of 10(Dir-Robert Butler): Good guy turned psycho hijacking a plane movie just becomes a little too all things work out right in the end for me.
Sure, we're cheering for the plane to come down and the Lauren Holly character to save the day, but why wouldn't we??--- That's where the movie took us!!
The story starts being about a bad cop planting evidence supposedly on a good guy.(who later turns out to be a psycho) That "good guy", played by Ray Liotta, is taken on a plane from NY to LA to go to his execution.
No- it couldn't be  but it is!!(The Goody-Two-Shoes girl!!) There are some funny bits at the end of the movie while Holly is trying to land the plane, but I'm not exactly sure they were what was needed.
Turbulence,  What can I say, my hat goes off to Ray Liotta in this film, its not often you see him play this sort of nasty character,  Oh maybe once before this one but im sure thats it.Like i've always said im a big fan of thriller movies, and this was a very good one,  I would stronly suggest you watch it.8/10.
Once the movie becomes cat and mouse between Liotta and the air stewardess, some of the dialogue is very good and quite amusing if you view it from the point that Liotta's character is a crazed psycho with nothing to lose but wants to have a bit of fun along the way.Some of the scenes involving the landing of the plane are quite good as well especially when it almost collides with a hotel restaurant and you get a POV on it.
Plane movies are always spectacular when they involve some kind of crash idea or a novice attempting to land one.So Ray Liotta as a crazed psycho with a grudge against a cop and on a hijacked empty 747, a guy who is destined for the chair and with nothing to lose is pretty good idea for a movie....in my opinion.
Don`t ask me how but I`d got it into my head that this was going to be very similar to CON AIR with a serial killer taking over a jumbo jet with Ray Liotta`s character Ryan Weaver saving the day .
Sure, it's not the best movie in the world, but for action, suspense and a Lauren Holly/Ray Liotta combo, it's pretty darned good.
Turbulence is a great ride from start to finish because it IS so predictable; you don't have to pay that close of attention and think too hard to get the plot but it is suspenseful and a kick to watch Lauren Holly's character grow in her own self-confidence by the end of the film.
But there is so much fun to be had in the madness that it's always worth a mindless watch.Our silly plot has Ray Liotta and Brendan Gleeson as serial killer and bank robber breaking loose from their captors aboard a virtually empty cross-country flight, killing the pilots and FBI before the runaway plane flies into a hurricane.
Despite the many weaknesses of 'Turbulence' (including a plot that stretches credibility to the limits), from the standpoint of action and suspense this one gives you a nail-biting experience, mainly because of Ray Liotta's intense performance as a serial killer and the always reliable special effects depicting a non-stop storm.While not in the same league with other airplane disaster movies, it does work up a good deal of suspense over how the interaction between Liotta and stewardess Lauren Holly will eventually be resolved.
There are too many loopholes in the plot to make the film credible by the time Holly lands the plane herself--but nevertheless, along the way there are some moments of terror and suspense that live up to the film's advertising slogan: "It's a killer ride!"The saving grace of the film is Ray Liotta's intense performance.
Turbulence (1997): Dir: Robert Butler / Cast: Lauren Holly, Ray Liotta, Hector Elizondo, Catherine Hicks, Rachel Ticotin: Total waste of film that belongs in a trash bin.
but it goes like this: SPOILERS Two convicts, Ryan Weaver (Ray Liotta) and Stubbs (Brendan Gleeson), caught in New York City, are moved on a commercial plane by 4 marshalls (Michael Harney, Grand L.