Executive Decision

1996 US
Dir: Stuart Baird
Str: Kurt Russel, Halle Berry, Olivar Platt, Steven Seagal


Why is it difficult to find truely engrossing action movies these
days? They look like all identical for me except few cases.
These days, I seldom watch recent action movies. Though, of course, there are several exceptions, almost all of them look identical to each other for me. As I said in another review, heavy reliance upon hardware aspects seems to have been diluting the contents of many movies. I dare not enumerate examples here, for you can rather easily find such movies among a vast amount of recent action movies if you try. To avoid misunderstanding, I must say I am not saying they shouldn't have employed recent advance technology to make movies. Instead, what I want to say is what technology can improve is rather limited to exterior of what it is applied to. Therefore, if they employed recent state-of-the-art technology without considering the contents it is applied to, the result would be totally unbalanced between exterior and interior. And, once someone started such deadly competition like who can make the most awe-inspiring product by utilizing recent technology, it would never stop until all of the participants but one winner collapse. Moreover, the movies made in this way are likely to be devoid of its own aura, which surely will make all those movies identical to each other no matter how different the subjects are. By these all reasons, when I try to watch recent action movies garlanded with dazzling hypes, I always feel something nagging me in the deep recess of my tired brain and eventually give up watching them.
Executive Decision is not an action movie. Because most of the
scenes take place on an airplain. By definition, there is no such
thing, an action movie sans any action.
Therefore, when I firstly watched Executive Decision by video, I was thinking this one might be the same. But it isn't. Despite the fact the phrase "action adventure" is on the package of the video tape, it is not an action movie, but a suspense movie. The fact that most of the scenes take place on an airplane that has been hijacked by a terrorist group surely suggests it can't be an action movie. Because the inside of an airplane is a very confined place, and a confined place is not suitable for action scenes that usually require wider space. Furthermore, since there is no comparable object to be compared to an airplane flying at very high altitude, it's very difficult to give viewers an impression the airplane shown is flying with tremendously high speed which can be one element of being an action movie. Therefore, it seems that the movies shot in the inside of an airplane can hardly be action movies. By definition, there is no such thing, an action movie sans any action.
Why is the movie Speed so engrossing?
Then, if so, what makes a movie a good action movie? I explain this by picking up the excellent recent action movie Speed (I am not going to discuss the lead actor of this movie here) as an example. The most prominent reason why Speed was so engrossing as an action movie is because all events happening in Speed take place on the surface of the earth, which enables us to easily make comparisons between the bus or the subway that is running with high speed and stationary structures such as buildings and the surface of highways, etc., and, in this respect, Speed handles this very tactfully. Compared to this, Speed2 was a complete failure because the scenes on a cruiser tend to become dull as an action movie losing the momentum of the intensity of high speed due to the fact, no matter fast the cruiser is, the view from the cruiser is panoramic and tenuous, meaning it lacks the denseness of stationary objects required for making the cruiser look moving very fast by comparison, not to mention Speed2 employs unnecessary comedy elements only to ruin the congruity of the movie itself. Also, the recent movie Air Force One has implausible scenes especially in the last part presumably in order to make it look an action movie. I think that was unnecessary. They ought to have considered the movie to be a suspense movie, not an action movie. In that way, it would have been a far better movie, I presume. I can enumerate several other examples which can show us how they could have been better had they been considered to be a suspense movie from first. In short, distinction between an action movie and a suspense movie is very important thing. Ignoring this would surely produce some promiscuous and pointless products.
Executive Decision carefully avoids becoming an androgynous
product by consentrating on suspense aspects.
In this regard, Executive Decision seems to have been made as a suspense movie from first except the last scene, about which I will tell later in this review. As a proof of this, I can point out the next fact; that is, the action star Steven Seagal appears in this movie, but he is excluded from the story in a very early stage. I guess everyone who watched this movie must have been wondering how they could employ such a famous action star, and dispose of him so quickly. What a waste! But I think they did so in order to show the audience their intention of making the movie a suspense movie. Had Steven Seagal continued to act, the movie would have hardly been a suspense movie. He is such kind of actor who can change the whole tinge of a given movie single-handedly. Furthermore, after the terrorists' ambition has been squashed by the effort from Kurt Russel and the Swat team members, the boss of the terrorist group asks Kurt Russel who they are. He answers this question by saying "no one", probably meaning they aren't such heroes like Steven Seagal or James Bond. At the same time, this phrase is suggesting the movie is not intended for being an action movie.
The point of view from which the audience is expected to see a
given movie is completely different between action movies and
suspense movies.
Do you think an action movie sans an action star can exist? I doubt it. Action movies are also hero movies, and, without them, they would be liable to become mere violence movies. On the other hand, suspense movies preclude the omnipotence of heroes, which can jeopardize suspense elements. If viewers know in advance protagonists can surely solve all the given problems by his omnipotence by the end of the movie, suspense elements will completely cease to exist. By saying so, I don't mean you can't watch a suspence movie more than once without losing the momentum of suspense elements. The reason is, suspense elements arises from the view point of a character in a given movie (hereafter called a character view point), not from your view point, and the omnipotence of the character from whose view point you are expected to see the whole story prohibits viewers from forming this very character view point. After all, a hero is called a hero because he/she is supposed to be a person who is completely different from ordinary persons like us. In short, action movies are the movies to be seen from a third person view point, meaning watching heroes who are definitely different from viewers act heroic actions, whereas suspense movies are the movies to be seen from more subjective view point, meaning overlapping your view point to a character view point to watch whole scenes from this character view point. In other wards, there is complete difference between action movies and suspense movies in the structures they are based upon. And, the fact, from first, Executive Decision, wisely chose to be a suspense movie using the scenes on an airplane, seems to suggest the movie will succeed in avoiding winding up in just another half-baked lukewarm action-oriented pseudo suspense movie.
Executive Decision has many suspenseful scenes.
Therefore, the focal point of this movie, as a suspense movie, resides in showing us how they can manage to regain the control of the hijacked airplane from the hand of the terrorist group without using any fire weaponry to the last moment. Indeed, even discharging a pistol prior to obtaining the accurate information about the number and the exact positions of terrorist members on the airplane would cause a catastrophe considering the situation. Especially, the scene Kurt Russel tries to communicate with one of the stewardesses (played by Halle Berry) is truely suspenseful. In this way, there is no doubt in that Executive Decision is a carefully crafted suspense movie.
But, still Executive Decision has an element of an action movie in
the last scene. Is that really necessary?
But, even this movie has an unnecessary action scene in the last part. That is the scene where all of the pilots are killed by a desperate terrorist boss, and a half-amateur pilot Kurt Russel must land the airplane with the aid of the aforementioned stewardess. I think this scene is unnecessary because viewers all know he will be able to land the airplane safely. If he couldn't, the movie would become some sort of black joke. Besides, without this scene, the playing time would have been more adequate (just 2 hours) than as it is. I guess they inserted this scene probably because they had thought there were few action scenes in the later half. As I said before, that is completely unnecessary for a suspense movie. It's rather strange to see ordinary person Kurt Russel who calls himself "no one" suddenly becoming a hero in the last moment. Anyway, except this scene, Executive Decision is one of the most suspenseful movies of recent years.


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