I agree with the other users comments that this film is pointless. I found this movie lacks any feeling, or emotion. No one cares how this movie ends. I do not know if it was the directors fault or the script. My wife likes it, and it could be lost to the male audience. This film is neither scary or tense. I did not like the preview, and it represents this movie well. Another forgettable movie that will someday fade away. 4/10

I remember watching a short trailer for this movie on a special 1997 trailers compilation VHS from Empire magazine, it is certainly a memorable title, you know it's going to involve a plane going wrong, I was hoping for something reasonably entertaining. Basically Ryan Weaver (Ray Liotta),better known as The Lonely Hearts Strangler, is arrested in New York City, he is known to have raped and killed five women, but he persists he was framed and is innocent. On Christmas Eve, he and fellow criminal Stubbs (Brendan Gleeson),convicted of robbery, are being transported on a commercial flight to Los Angeles, escorted by four US marshals. TransContinental Airlines Flight 7 is almost empty, with only eleven other people onboard, the entire cabin is decorated with Christmas trees, lights and tinsel. The flight takes off with no problems, Weaver maintains a calm, well-mannered and charming attitude, but Stubbs breaks free when using the bathroom, stabbing a marshal with the sink tap handle, and grabs his gun to shoot at the other marshals. During a struggle, a stray bullet is fired, punching a hole in the fuselage, instantly causing an explosive decompression. During the chaos, Captain Matt Powell (J. Kenneth Campbell) is fatally shot, and First Officer Ted Kary (James MacDonald) is killed hitting his head on the wheel, disengaging the autopilot, and a stray bullet pierces a hole in the lavatory window. Weaver frees himself and tries to save the last remaining marshal, but fails when he is shot by Stubbs, after being shot himself, Weaver appears shocked by the ordeal, increasing the trust of the passengers. With the pilots being dead, flight attendant Teri Halloran (Dumb and Dumber's Lauren Holly) makes her way into the cockpit, she is now the only person left onboard capable of keeping the 747 in the air. To make matters worse, the plane is heading for a storm which threatens level 6 (severe) turbulence. Weaver's behaviour becomes increasingly erratic, he is paranoid of being sentenced to death upon landing and occasionally suffers nervous breakdowns. He locks the passengers in the crew's cabin and strangles flight attendant Maggie (Child's Play's Catherine Hicks) to death. He then calls LAX FBI control centre and threatens to crash the plane into their facility, he is now on a suicide mission, and is willing to anything to avoid being arrested. Teri realised Weaver's motives after speaking, via the 747's radio, to Detective Lieutenant Aldo Hines (Pretty Woman's Hector Elizondo),who arrested him. Weaver tries to manipulate Teri into believing that he has good intentions, but she knows that many crew members are dead, and the passengers missing, so she forces him into the lower deck and locks the hatch. As the only hope for the plane's survival, Teri is instructed by Captain Samuel Bowen (Ben Cross),via the radio in another commercial flight plane, how to fly and prepare to land. The plane barely survives the turbulence of the storm, and Teri is unsuccessful during the first attempt to land the plane on a runway at LAX airport. The plane skims an office building, a Japanese restaurant and a parking lot, during which it collides with several vehicles, and an SUV is picked up on the wheel, forcing the plane to go up again and alter course. Weaver meanwhile is below attempting to destroy the circuits that control the autopilot, but Teri manages to turn the plane around out of Los Angeles airspace, while a U.S. Navy F-14 Tomcat Fighter jet has been ordered to shoot the plane down. Teri begs LAX to give her one m ore chance, insisting that she can land the plane, at this point, Weaver is drunk from drinking champagne and has turned crazy. He breaks into the cockpit with an axe and tries to murder her, but the fighter jet shoots the SUV off the wheel, causing the plane to shake. Teri gets the chance to grab one of the marshals' guns, and picks up a bullet from the floor, Weaver holds him at gunpoint, he teases her that he won't kill him, but she squeezes the trigger, shooting Weaver in the head and killing him. Teri returns to the pilot's seat and safely lands the 747 in LAX, Weaver boasted that he killed everyone aboard, but the surviving crew and passengers are found alive. Also starring Total Recall's Rachel Ticotin as Rachel Taper, Jeffrey DeMunn as Brooks, John Finn as FBI Agent Frank Sinclair, Heidi Kling as Betty, Michael Harney as Marshall Marty Douglas, Licence to Kill's Grand L. Bush as Marshal Al Arquette, Alan Bergmann as Mr. Kramer, Danna Hansen as Mrs. Kramer and R.J. Knoll as Kip. Liotta is a good choice as the villain, first being a creepy charmer, then going full blown hog-wild, and Holly is alright as the innocent but plucky flight attendant, think of this movie as "Die Hard in the sky", because it is essentially the same format, a psycho on the loose in a plane and the person in the wrong place at the wrong who must save the save, some of the dialogue is cheesy, and it is somewhat overblown and ludicrous at times, but it is exciting, you can abandon logic and just go with it, a reasonably fun action thriller. Worth watching!

The central premise for this so-outrageously-awful-that-it's-highly-entertaining airborne suspense thriller must have been devised in the third or fourth circle of "high concept" movie hell. To wit: a belated overblown "Airport" sequel about a wild-eyed sanguinary sickpup psycho terrorizing folks on board a Christmas Eve red-eye airplane flight some 35,000 feet up in the air. The fact that the murderously deranged and dangerous, yet still diabolically charming and cunning fruitcake in question is played by consummate celluloid creepo specialist Ray Liotta in full-tilt let it all hang out something freaky hambone histrionic mode firmly ensures that the viewer is in for one hell of a terrifically wacky'n'tacky schlock hoot; Ray overacts with such hysterically maniacal and unrestrained cackling relish that it's an honest miracle his nose doesn't start profusely bleeding some fifteen-odd minutes into the picture.

Robert Butler's shameless anything-for-a-cheap-jolt direction likewise eschews tact and subtlety with expectedly atrocious results, thereby maintaining a consistently crummy level of pure jaw-dropping trashiness from start to finish. In jarring contrast to Liotta's astonishingly out-of-control and over-the-top eye-rolling twitchy thesping is the comparably startling woodenness of Lauren Holly's stupendously stiff and stoical performance as a beleaguered stewardess; Holly's grim-faced reserve in the context of this ridiculously wretched enterprise provides a particularly rich source of unintentional hilarity. The crassly exploited yuletide angle adds a substantial deliciously cheesy touch to the already delightfully dire proceedings, especially when the bloodied bodies of several slain passengers are propped up in their seats so they can watch an in-flight screening of "It's a Wonderful Life"! Toss in a supporting cast which includes such down and out, desperately slumming for an easy paycheck faded luminaries as Catherine Hicks, Ben Cross, Hector Elizondo, Brendon Gleeson (sporting a hilariously horrendous won't-fool-you-for-a-second overdone Southern accent),Rachel Ticotin and Jeffrey DeMunn, jazz it up with Shirley Walker's barnstorming score, have the punchy pace scoot along at a whiplash-inducing breakneck clip, crank the tension to the electrifyingly gaga ninth degree, and the net result of all this ill-advised go-for-broke berserk effort is a gloriously ghastly bad film treat that's eminently worthy of crap camp classic status.