Executive Decision: Difference between revisions

[[File:MPW-4260_8249.jpg|frame]]

 

Terrorists have hijacked a Boeing 747 en route from Athens to Washington, D.C., demanding in exchange for the hostages the release of fictional terrorist El Sayed Jaffa, who had been recently captured and taken into United States custody. It is discovered that the terrorists are actually planning an attack on Washington, D.C., placing a bomb on the airplane that will release a large amount of nerve gas on detonation. A plan is devised to place a small team of United States Army Special Forces into the plane mid-flight to retake control and disable the bomb. If they are not successful, it may become necessary to shoot down the aircraft before it reaches United States airspace, sacrificing approximately 400 innocent passengers to save the lives of hundreds of thousands on the ground. That call is an "executive decision", meaning that it must be made by the President of the United States.

 

 

{{tropelist}}

 

* [[Air Vent Passageway]]: [[Played With]]: The heroes take turns crawling around in the crawlspace above the passenger cabin so they can spy on the bad guys. They spend most of the rest of the movie hiding in the cargo bay.

* [[Badass Bookworm]]: Grant.

* [[Destroy the Evidence]]: One of the flight attendants throws away the passenger manifest, which would have otherwise revealed the presence of the [[Chekhov's Gunman|Sky Marshal]] on the plane to the terrorists.

** The terrorists quickly realize that the manifest is gone, but they think that it was destroyed to cover up the fact that there was a Senator on board.

* [[Everyone Knows Morse]]: Played with.

* [[Heroic Sacrifice]]: {{spoiler|Travis closing the external 747 hatch right before the Remora conduit integrity fails}}.

* [[Homage]]: The scene involving the F-14 interception was the last film appearance of [[Badass Crew|Squadron VF-84, ''The Jolly Rogers'']], before being decommissioned.

* [[Meaningful Echo]]: {{spoiler|"Just fly the plane."}}

* [[Mundane Solution]]: The bomb is "defused" not with all the high-tech gear the soldiers brought on board, but rather by the simple expedient of thrusting a [[Rock Beats Laser|plastic swizzle-stick between two electrical contacts]], thus preventing the detonator from firing.

* [[Not Quite Dead]]: Captain Rat, who kills Hassan in the end.

* [[Post Modernism]]: For most of us a movie begins when we see the trailer or the poster; Steven Seagal's character, Travis, features prominently in these places. {{spoiler|So we figure he's the guy who will save the day and are doubly shocked when he dies.}} Utterly brilliant.

* [[Retirony]]: The flight attendant gushing about her recent wedding is the first to die when the hijackers take over the plane.

* [[Suicide Attack]]: Hassan's original intention.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Dreamworks Animation]]

[[Category:Films of the 1990s]]