Fun Dumb Action: Plane and Shotgun Wedding

Recently I have watched two different movies that involve foreigners on an island in the Philippines having to defend themselves from kidnappers and pirates. These movies are dumb but endlessly entertaining (well one more so than the other) and they both understand that they need to be an hour and a half and then call it a night. No bloated blockbusters here - just lean, ridiculous, action films that provide some thrills and laughs.

Plane: I have been gushing about this movie to every single person I've met since watching it. I first saw the trailer at the movie theater, and the audience collectively laughed when the title of the movie was finally revealed. Just PLANE. Considering that the trailer depicted Gerard Butler as a pilot who crash lands a commercial plane in the middle of a Filipino island and then has to protect his passengers as armed separatists try to kidnap them, I made a lot of jokes. Why is this movie called Plane if the plane crashes right at the beginning of the film? What a ridiculous title. Well, readers. I am here to eat crow. This movie fully deserves to be called Plane and I bow down before its genius.

Directed by Jean-Francois Richet from a screenplay by Charles Cumming and J. P. Davis, here's a very cursory plot summary. Butler is playing his Scottish self (no fake American accents to contend with) although his character does have the insanely non-Scottish name of Brody Torrance. Yoson An and Danielle Pineda play the co-pilot and head flight attendant who have to help out a fair amount as things go haywire on this flight. You'll spend some time with the passengers, but the main passenger you need to know about is Louis Gaspare (Mike Colter, who you may recognize as Luke Cage from the Marvel Cinematic Universe). He is a handcuffed prisoner who is being extradited on charges of homicide. He's a former French Foreign Legion soldier, so you can imagine that once they crash on the island and are dealing with a bunch of rebels, Brody is going to decide that maybe it's time to take Gaspare's handcuffs off and use his unique set of skills.

The movie also goes back and forth to New York where the airline has set up a crisis center. The man they have hired to help manage this crisis has the wonderful name of David Scarsdale, and he is played with relish by Tony Goldwyn. He's everything you want him to be, as is Gerard Butler, and together, this is the most stereotypical and entertaining action flick I've seen in a while. Turn your brain off and settle in for a non-stop action-packed adrenalin rush. It's a little violent and bloody for sure. But it's all worth it. PLANE.

Shotgun Wedding: Do you want to watch Jennifer Lopez get increasingly dirty and disheveled for an hour and a half and yet somehow still be the most gorgeous woman you've ever seen? Then this is the movie for you. Here, we're back in the Philippines, but this time it's because Darcy (Lopez) is getting married to Tom (Josh Duhamel). Tom is being a Groomzilla who has decided this destination wedding is the perfect way to celebrate their love, and Darcy is going along with it to make him happy. She has also been forced to wear his mother's terribly extravagant wedding dress - this dress is a marvel of costume design and will get progressively degraded over the course of this film; though only in a way designed to increasingly flaunt Lopez's assets.

There isn't much more to say. Pirates attack on the day of the wedding. Tom and Darcy were off having a pre-wedding fight, so now they must try to rescue their families while fighting off armed gunmen. You can imagine that much chaos ensues, especially considering that Darcy has a fear of blood and Tom is a retired baseball player who doesn't have much in the way of combat skills. The supporting cast includes such stalwarts as Jennifer Coolidge (playing Tom's extremely clueless mother) and D'Arcy Carden (playing Darcy's father's new girlfriend). And did I mention Lenny Kravitz shows up as Darcy's ex? It's quite the reunion of music superstars. 

Directed by Jason Moore and written by Mark Hammer, this movie is terribly silly, racks up a surprisingly high body count, and is a perfectly mindless film to stream while you're sprawled on the couch on a wintry afternoon. It's certainly not as good as PLANE (what film could be?) but if you simply want some action, some romance, and some laughs, this film will deliver.