An unassuming, undemanding, and utterly unconvincing disaster thriller, or pending-disaster thriller, to be more exact. We hadn't had an entry in the Airport series since 1979, or significantly ever since the advent of the Airplane! series. This, braving the possible raspberry, serves as a revival. It distinguishes itself from the prototypical Nineties thriller by concentrating on disentangling a single complex problem -- how to board a hijacked airliner in midflight without the hijackers knowing it, and how to discover and disarm a nerve-gas device of science-fictional potency -- before the shooting can start. Once the shooting does start, the movie succumbs to the fashionable excesses: the bad guy never stays down the first time, and there is always at least one more crisis than a straight face can bear. Steven Seagal is well used in what may be described (to tip off older-generation film buffs only) as essentially the Sophia Loren role in Operation Crossbow. And the whole thing presents Kurt Russell (as a four-eyed intelligence advisor called away from a D.C. soiree in full tuxedo: "Who's this? James Bond?") with a severe test of his unshakable honesty. He passes it with flying colors. Halle Berry, John Leguizamo, Oliver Platt; directed by Stuart Baird. (1996) — Duncan Shepherd
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