Air Force One

1997 Action/Adventure

In this action drama, Harrison Ford plays James Marshall, a onetime combat hero in the Vietnam War who is now President of the United States. While visiting the former Soviet Union, Marshall gives a speech in which he supports a get-tough attitude against both terrorists and a right-wing general and war criminal from Kazakhstan imprisoned in Moscow, earning him few friends in the Eastern Bloc. While flying back to the United States aboard Air Force One, Marshall and his staff discover that one of the journalists returning with them is actually Ivan Korshunov (Gary Oldman), a Kazakhstani terrorist, who hijacks the plane with three associates and holds the president hostage -- with his wife and daughter on board. Marshall must use his strength and intelligence to keep the terrorists at bay and devise a plan to allow his family to escape to safety, while on the ground the vice-president (Glenn Close), the secretary of defense (Dean Stockwell), and the attorney general (Philip Baker Hall) grapple over what to do and how much control to take in this crisis. Slam-bang action sequences and plot twists fly fast and furious in this nail-biter from director Wolfgang Petersen, who previously generated suspense under water (rather than in the air) with Das Boot. more..

Director: Wolfgang Petersen

Starring: Harrison Ford,Gary Oldman, Glenn Close, Wendy Crewson,Paul Guilfoyle

Reviews

  • At once vigorous and old-fashioned, a piece of expertly crafted entertainment that gets the job done with skill and panache.

    Kenneth Turan - Los Angeles Times

    29 November 2012

  • Harrison Ford as the President of the United States is such a perfect piece of casting that it's at once a fantasy and a joke: The joke is how perfect the fantasy is.

    Owen Gleiberman - Entertainment Weekly

    29 November 2012

  • Dares to present a flat-out heroic president, without the safety net of irony. It succeeds.

    Mick LaSalle - The San Francisco Chronicle

    29 November 2012

  • Ford makes such a dynamic president in Air Force One, you may find yourself favorably weighing his odds in Iowa and New Hampshire.

    Desson Thomson - The Washington Post

    29 November 2012

  • Director Wolfgang Petersen puts such a fresh spin on the familiar that it all works like gangbusters.

    Peter Travers - Rolling Stone

    29 November 2012

Awards

  • Top Box Office Films

    ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards (1998)

  • Best Film Editing

    Academy Awards (1998)

     
  • Best Edited Feature Film

    American Cinema Editors (1998)

     
  • Best Foreign Film

    Awards of the Japanese Academy (1998)

     
  • Jerry Goldsmith

    BMI Film & TV Awards (1998)