Passenger 57 (1992)

Movie Info

Gee, I wonder if this could pay off later in the movie…

John Cutter (Wesley Snipes) is struggling with the loss of his wife as he works as a security expert for an airline.  When the transportation of a dangerous terrorist named Charles Rane (Bruce Payne) leads to his hijacking of the airplane that Cutter is on, Cutter and a flight attendant named Marti Slayton (Alex Datcher) must find a way to land the plane and stop the terrorists.

Directed by Kevin Hooks, Passenger 57 is an action-adventure film and helped make Snipes an action star.  The movie was met with average to mostly negative review but was a big box office success.

Passenger 57 is very average action.  It is too bad because the movie has potential, but the script for the film is so bad that any decent characters are lost…leading to a rather dull film that keeps going.

Obligatory (aka lazy) racist cops in the South scene…

What should have been a movie about a plane being held hostage by a madman ends up being about a fifteen minute flight and lots of dull scenes on the runway and a fair.  The movie inevitably has a racist cop show up (since it is set in Louisiana, I guess it is a requirement), and the movie goes into my least favorite style of generic plot twist with mistaken identity for a period of time…the movie goes on-and-on (though you do get the great line from Snipes to the terrorist in regards to roulette “Let me give you a bit of advice…always bet on black!”)

“He said ‘Always bet on black’…what does that mean?”

Snipes is strong in the film but his character is rather bland and his back story is weak (you know that there is going to be a hostage situation with Alex Datcher).  Bruce Payne is fun as the psychotic terrorist, but once again hindered by a weak script he doesn’t get a meaty enough role.  Tom Sizemore plays a rather dull role as the corporate friend of Snipes…there also isn’t much chemistry between Alex Datcher and Snipes.  It is fun to see Elizabeth Hurley as the lover of Payne and gun toting terrorist.

Passenger 57 should have been a great fun ride but instead Passenger 57 ends up a snoozer.  You can find worst action movies, but you can also find better action movies like Die Hard from which this movie borrows heavily.  You can often find the movie in collections and other action packs, so check it out…but I’d rather watch a better action movie I’ve seen before than watch this again (or if you must have Snipes, pop in a Blade film).