Samuel L. Jackson plays an FBI agent with the ultra-cool name of Neville Flynn. He’s transporting a Federal witness (Australia’s own Nathan Phillips, surviving sicko John Jarratt only to be stuck on this flight from hell!) from Honolulu to L.A. in order to testify against some gangster. Naturally, said mobster arranges a hit on Phillips…however, you won’t see anything like this on ‘The Sopranos’. Instead of a simple whack-job (or sending a whack-job to do the said job of whacking), he unleashes some several hundred poisonous snakes on the plane, to play havoc on Phillips and anyone else on board. The passengers are a pretty disagreeable lot; Narcissistic, cowardly and germaphobic rapper 3 G’s (Flex Alexander, as a mixture of 50 Cent, P Diddly Widdly- so sue me!, Kanye West and Jamie Foxx), Kenan Thompson is his chubby video game-obsessed offsider/entourage member, Rachel Blanchard is a spoilt Paris Hilton-type (no stretch for the ‘Clueless’ TV star), Patrick Malahide is a snobby Brit, whilst Juliana Margulies (actually showing emotion for once) and New Line Cinema prerequisite Lin Shaye play two different kinds of flight attendants. Also look out for the hilarious, almost certainly closeted gay flight attendant in denial, as well as a very funny David Koechner as the seriously randy (as in Randy Quaid?) pilot, and Bobby Cannavale as Jackson’s buddy on the ground.
This 2006 David R. Ellis film is precisely as you’d expect it to be. The title tells you whether you’re the right audience for the film or not. Thankfully, I am very much the audience for this intentionally silly, sometimes very funny (David Koechner as the pilot? Dear God, they really are screwed!), and wholly watchable B-movie. Sam is the Man of course, and I’d almost want him to make more dopey movies like this if he wasn’t such a talented actor. Also worth mentioning are Blanchard (whose dog gets…well, let’s just say it’s a great moment, but not for dog lovers) and Alexander (a very brave man for what he is lampooning), also funny as obvious snake-bait, and Cannavale milks a lot of humour out of his otherwise awful role. It is what it is (there’s a snake in a barf bag, which almost made the movie for me single-handedly and the inevitable snake on the end of a one-eyed trouser snake, and one helluva nipple bite too!), and boy is it fun- you just won’t believe who has to land the plane!
The FX and snake-POV aren’t very convincing, but the film would be lesser if the FX actually were better. It’s supposed to be dopey and the FX (whilst not awful) match that. They probably could’ve dropped the prologue with Sam and Nathan on land, but why carp? Especially when you’ve got classically stupid lines like ‘All Praises to the Playstation!’ and that infamous, twelve-letter expletive-filled line from Sammy J. that I probably don’t need to reprint here- it’s a helluva line anyway.
OVERALL SUMMARY
If you expect snakes, a plane, and for snakes to be on that plane, you will not be disappointed. If you’re looking for anything else, don’t bother. It is what it is, and for me, it was a bit of fun.
