Forget Sudden Death, Broken Arrow and Terminal Velocity. Forget every one of the spate of potty high flying escapades that cavorted their way onto screens around the same time as this hostage drama with scant regard for good sense. Executive Decision taps such levels of preposterousness it makes Die Hard 2 resemble a taut exercise in Ken Loach-styled social realism. It is also the most amount of ludicrous fun for many a moon.
On a speeding Jumbo heading for Washington, a group of fanatical Middle Eastern terrorists (of no given address) have exercised their right to hijack. So far so typical. What makes this different is that they have smuggled aboard a bomb-rigged cache of ultra-lethal nerve gas in quantities capable of wiping out much of the continent's Eastern seaboard. And you can bet your life that their reasonable but intermittently psycho leader David Suchet (Euro villain as Middle Eastern) is on for a bit of suicide bombing.
A multitude of plot complications later and a crack team of commandos have snuck on board (care of a Stealth bomber and an almost disastrous transference procedure) ready to face a further multitude of complications in rescuing the passengers, disarming the bomb, and averting the "executive decision" of destroying the 747 (and the 400 aboard) before it reaches the American exclusion zone. As you can gather, there is far too much plot and none of it convinces, but first-time director Baird rips-off action movie staples with such abandon that as you howl with laughter you're still tottering on the edge of your seat.
Russell is the Jack Ryan type, roped in at the last minute who spends the entire movie in a Bondian tuxedo. There's also John Leguizamo's grunt, Oliver Platt's nerdy computer whizz, Berry as the gutsy stewardess and Joe Morton as a bomb disposal expert who - shock! - is rendered paralysed as soon as they crash the plane. To top it all Steven Seagal gets an unbilled extended cameo as a hard-bitten chief commando only to buy it early on.
Every cliche in the book is turned full-throttle - even after all the Die Hardery is done with, the film spends an extra 15 minutes pretending to be an Airport-style disaster movie. The least surprising element is that Joel Silver is credited as executive producer.