PASSENGER 57 (1992) - **1/2

Action movies like these always have an opening that either displays the badass credentials of the hero, or the diabolical capability of the villain. With PASSENGER 57, it’s the latter where you have Bruce Payne at a cosmetics practice to get some plastic surgery when the FBI busts in. Payne takes a scalpel, slits the surgeon's throat, then jumps out the window of a two-story building, crashing hard into the cafe below without anything to soften his fall...but he gets up and runs away without a scratch. It's such a ludicrous opening, but I kept watching.

Later, this whack job is advised by his attorney to seek an insanity defense, which prompts a beat down until the lawyer is made to utter over and over that his client isn't crazy. Can you really blame Payne though? I mean, I'm sure the admission of mental disease hurts your stock as a free agent terrorist, perhaps because clients may think you're unstable or unreliable, and the guy has gotta pay his bills somehow.

If you went to see action at the cinema in the late 1980s and early 1990s, you already know the plot: Terrorists hijack, civilians held hostage, hero at the wrong place at the wrong time happens to be in proximity, and he kicks alot of ass. What is unique about PASSENGER 57 is that among all the DIE HARD knock-offs, this is arguably the sole blaxploitation entry. I guess I could also count HALF PAST DEAD, but that sucked so fuck it.

Consider how the hero Wesley Snipes is seated on the plane next to a Jewish Grandmother, who mistakes him for Arsenio Hall. It's a quite funny scene of Snipes' eyes during that whole ordeal, and because of the stereotype that white eyes can't tell the difference between those black people. This just me, but both Snipes and Payne should fire their travel agent for booking them on the same flight. "Oh and Mr. Payne/Snipes, I should tell you out of courtesy that the best counter-terrorism expert/airline hijacker in America is also on your plane. Smoking or Non-Smoking?"

Then later when Snipes is thrown off the captive plane during landing, the redneck police rough him up and don't believe him at all because why would a black guy in the middle of an airport be doing but causing trouble, right? In fact, the hick sheriff actually seems to take the white baddie's word for granted that Snipes is one of the terrorists. Sorry dude, but you're a racist dumbass for trusting some evil British asshole over Blade. Then there is the epilogue where Snipes' Caucasian schmuck buddy Tom Sizemore (before he was the druggie who beat up Heidi Fleiss) takes credit for saving the day, while Snipes goes off to score some hot hero sex. But most of all, we get the picture's sole cool one-liner: "Always bet on black!"

Shaft would be so proud.

Yeah I'm rambling here about PASSENGER 57 because it's not just formulaic, its practically a rerun of the Steven Seagal vehicle UNDER SIEGE. Both have heroes that are former governmental warriors who are locked up (Seagal in meat locker, Snipes in bathroom) when the shit goes down, both have female sidekicks, both fighting a lunatic super-hijacker, both take place primarily on a moving vehicle, both kill their adversary in a fist fight, both were produced by Warner Bros., and both in fact came out in 1992. Weird.

But the difference is that while UNDER SIEGE was a pretty good flick, and the king of the DIE HARD clones, PASSENGER 57 is more SUDDEN DEATH in being uninspired as running the genre playbook with the clichés. You have the retired hero who got his wife killed, so he's trying to gain redemption. Payne is a calm quiet generic as hell psychopathic because he enjoys killing passengers, every cop but Snipes is incompetent, he also happens to be an expert motorcyclist, he kills the henchmen one at a time, etc.

It doesn't help how despite being trapped on a plane during flight, and escaping by an elevator, the hijackers easily could have found and killed them in such a cramp limited space. I mean I can buy such sneaking and hiding in a skyscraper or battleship, but this is ridiculous. The whole carnival setpiece sorta comes off as more campy than exciting, and also how did Snipes even know the crooks would be heading there? Hell, why didn't they simply steal a car from the airport parking lot?

That said, PASSENGER 57 is still entertaining in a mindless disposable sort of way, but I won't recommend this to casual viewers. But if you're an action junkie and a fan of Snipes before he went to jail, it's perfect when you're home alone on a Friday night with pizza and booze. Plus, one of Payne's hijackers is a younger Elizabeth Hurley. You know, that pretty British model that couldn't act her way out of a paper bag to save her life, but was admittedly surely hot before she got preggers and disappeared on us. So if you are really really home alone, at least you'll save some money.

But only idiots actually pay for porn, or mess with Snipes.