Rough Air: Danger on Flight 534 (2001) Eric Roberts, Alexandra Paul, Anne Openshaw, Kevin Jubinville, Russell Yuen, Mark Lutz, Sergio Di Zio Movie Review

Rough Air: Danger on Flight 534 (2001)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Alexandra Paul and Eric Roberts in Rough Air: Danger on Flight 534 (2001)

In Flight Fun

Having been forced to take administration work after he took the blame for a plane crash Mike Hogan (Eric Roberts - The Cable Guy) is asked to be First Officer on a flight from London to Boston when a staff shortage causes huge delays. It brings him face to face with his ex, Flight Attendant Katy Phillips (Alexandra Paul - Dragnet), who still has feelings for him. But the flight is a troubled one as an incident in the cargo hold causes the Captain to be knocked unconscious and the plane to end in deep trouble with only Mike capable of guiding them back safely.

If I'd watched "Rough Air: Danger on Flight 534" on a Monday I would have probably hated every second of it, but I watched it on a Friday and enjoyed it. You may ask how the day of the week can be important in whether or not a movie works, in truth it isn't but by the Friday when I got to watch "Rough Air: Danger on Flight 534" I just wanted some entertaining nonsense to make me laugh. Although having said that I am not entirely sure that the intention of this movie was to make the audience laugh because "Rough Air: Danger on Flight 534" is a disaster movie about a stricken plane with a suspended pilot given the chance to redeem himself. But it is a movie so drenched in cliche, cheesy characters and corny dialogue that it is impossible not to laugh, that is if you are in the right mood because if you're not and take it seriously it is terrible.

Everything about "Rough Air" is cliche starting with the collection of passengers aboard the plane from an arrogant businessman to a prisoner being escorted back to the United States. Once we have are group of cliches, I mean characters, we also have the troubled Mike, the pilot who is going to have a chance to redeem himself when trouble hits. And then talking of the trouble we don't get one disaster but a whole chain effect of problems all of which are incredibly cliche. Basically there isn't an ounce of originality in "Rough Air: Danger on Flight 534" and you almost wonder whether the writers took "Airplane" and tried to make a serious version it is that cliche ridden.

But because it is so often painfully corny "Rough Air: Danger on Flight 534" is surprisingly entertaining. From Eric Roberts dropping so many witty one liners to the absolute daftness of all the disasters it enters the zone of being enjoyably bad.

What this all boils down to is that if you are after a serious air disaster movie "Rough Air" isn't it. But if you want something corny, cliche and cheesy and is enjoyably bad then I can't recommend it enough.


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