Brodie Torrance (Gerard Butler) is a pilot for Trailblazers Airlines.  When he arrives for his flight from Singapore to Honolulu, he is not thrilled to discover that one of his passengers is going to be the recently captured fugitive, Louis Gaspare (Mike Colter).  However, that soon turns out to be the least of his problems as his plane ends up flying straight into a storm.  With the plane damaged, Brodie is forced to land on an island.  Unsure of how long it’s going to take the airline to find the plane, Brodie heads into the jungle to find help.  Accompanying him is Louis, who turns out to be the not that bad of a guy at all.

Unfortunately, there are some actual bad guys on the island.  In fact, it turns out that the island is controlled by Datu Junmar (Evan Dale Taylor), a vicious terrorist who is implied to be connected to ISIS.  Junmar and his men plan to take the passengers and crew hostage.  In New York, a mysterious man named Scarsdale (Tony Goldwyn) has arranged for a group of mercenaries to travel to the island and rescue the crew and the passengers.  However, it’s not clear whether the mercenaries are going to make it to the island in time.  Can Brodie defeat the terrorists and help everyone escape from the island?

Fortunately, Brodie Torrance may just be a pilot who works for an admittedly third tier airline but he’s also Gerard Butler.  From the minutes we first see Brodie, we know that there’s probably more to him than just flying commercial planes.  And indeed, it does turn out that Brodie knows how to throw a punch.  He also knows how to fire a weapon and how to run someone over on a landing strip.  Again, he’s Gerard Butler.  Gerard Butler really doesn’t get enough credit for being an actor who is believable as both an action hero and a normal human being.  Someone like Dwayne Johnson is always credible when he’s fighting someone or shooting a weapon or delivering a one liner but it’s always difficult to picture him as someone who goes to the mall or gets his oil changed every year or who does anything else that feels remotely like everyday life.  Gerard Butler, on the other hand, is credible whether he’s punching out a villain or shopping at a grocery store.  He’s the everyday action hero and Plane makes good use of his talents.

Plane is a simple and admirably straight-forward film.  Brodie lands on an island that’s full of terrorists.  Brodie has to defeat the terrorists and escape from the island.  There aren’t a lot of unnecessary complications or attempts to fool the audience into thinking that Plane is something more than it is.  Instead, Plane embraces its status as an action movie and it tells its story in a brisk 107 minutes.  It’s entertaining and it’s undemanding and, even though it was released way back in January, it’s a good film for the summer months.  In the past, straight-forward, well-made action films were so common that we took them for granted.  Today, in this age of bloated, CGI-heavy cinematic universes, messy continuities, and movies that often run closer to three hours than 90 minutes, a film like Plane is a cause for celebration.