
DATE: Wednesday, July 30, 1997              TAG: 9707300057

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E6   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Movie Review

SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC 

                                            LENGTH:   75 lines

ESCAPES, TWISTS KEEP ``AIR FORCE ONE'' ZOOMING ALONG

CONGRESS WAS never this rough!

Not since Harry S. Truman have we had a president with this kind of bluster, and even Harry never got quite this physical about it.

In our hearts we know ``Air Force One'' is silly, but at the rapid-fire pace of this summer escapist film, we don't have time to question. There are enough narrow escapes and plot twists to keep us on the figurative edge of the seat for the duration.

Director Wolfgang Petersen is adept at providing little breathing spells between the onslaughts - refreshing the audience and making us willing to keep playing the game.

We know the film is a fantasy when, in an early scene, the president of the United States abandons his teleprompter to give a speech admitting that he has wavered in his policy toward terrorists and will henceforth do the right thing, regardless of politics.

Air Force One, carrying the president and his staff, is then hijacked in its flight from Russia by yet another stern-faced terrorist (Gary Oldman) who mouths off regularly about his duty to ``mother Russia'' but has fewer tizzy fits than some summer villains.

The film is lifted from ``what?'' to an intriguing ``what if?'' by its situation - a U.S. president in peril. Without the real-life plot game and the classy presence of Harrison Ford as the ever-stern president and Glenn Close as the vice president, the film might be on the level of ``Airplane 1997.''

Ford, with six of the all-time box office hits on his resume, has established a movie-image persona that might rank with some of the old-timers (John Wayne, for example) in trustworthiness. He's coming off two flops, ``Sabrina'' and ``The Devil's Own,'' but here he delivers earnestness, which is about all he needs to do. He's the kind of hero who will rally the forces when his back is against the wall.

Close has a deceptively difficult assignment as the vice president, a performance that could easily have sunk into posing. She has to face a gung-ho Cabinet member, played by Dean Stockwell. William H. Macy, an Oscar nominee last year for ``Fargo,'' is underused as another Cabinet member.

One supposes we aren't meant to ask why all those flying bullets don't do much damage to the plane's exterior. The president's athleticism, which literally has him hanging in space at one point, is explained - somewhat - by the fact that Ford's character was a medal-winning Vietnam vet. At least the base was touched.

We are shown how Oldman got admission to the plane via a Russian press pass, but there is no hint as to how his bevy of gun-toting henchmen got on board. The implausibilities are many, but there is some outright fun in seeing just how far scriptwriter Andrew W. Marlowe will go and how well director Petersen can cover for him.

Petersen has dealt with presidential danger before in ``In the Line of Fire'' and with claustrophobic conditions in his submarine anti-war film ``Das Boot.'' The experience shows here; while he follows a familiar formula for summer escapist films, he earns his thrills with an ample serving of simple emotions.

If you're in a mood to take the ride, you'll also be in the mood to suspend disbelief. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

COLUMBIA PICTURES

As President James Marshall, Harrison Ford takes matters into his

own hands after his plane is hijacked by terrorists.

Graphic

MOVIE REVIEW

``Air Force One''

Cast: Harrison Ford, Glenn Close, Gary Oldman, Dean Stockwell,

William H. Macy, Wendy Crewson, Liesel Matthews

Director: Wolfgang Petersen

Screenplay: Andrew W. Marlowe

MPAA rating: R (cartoonish violence)