Executive Decision is a 1996 action film, directed by Stuart Baird and starring Kurt Russell, Halle Berry, David Suchet, John Leguizamo, and Steven Seagal. The film was released in the United States on March 15, 1996.
Synopsis
Lieutenant Colonel Austin Travis (Steven Seagal) leads an unsuccessful raid on a Chechen mafia safehouse by a United States Army special forces team to recover a stolen Soviet nerve agent, DZ-5.
Dr. David Grant (Kurt Russell), a defense scientist, is informed that the world's most feared terrorist, El Sayed Jaffa (Andreas Katsulas), has been taken into custody.
Shortly after, Oceanic Airlines Flight 343, a Boeing 747-200, leaves Athens bound for Washington Dulles. It is hijacked by Jaffa's number two man, Nagi Hassan (David Suchet), and a number of Jaffa's men. Grant is summoned to the Pentagon to join a team led by Travis which is being readied to intercept the hijacked plane. They listen to Nagi Hassan's demand for the release of Jaffa. Dr. Grant, however, does not believe Hassan wants Jaffa released. He believes that Hassan actually arranged for Jaffa's capture, that the hijacked plane is carrying a bomb loaded with DZ-5, and that Hassan wants to detonate the bomb over U.S. airspace.
A plan is worked out that will involve a mid-air transfer of a commando team onto the hijacked airliner using an experimental "Remora" aircraft. The plan is approved, and Colonel Travis assembles his commando team at Andrews Air Force Base. They board with Dr. Grant and engineer Dennis Cahill (Oliver Platt).
The boarding is partially successful; Sergeant "Cappy" Matheny (Joe Morton) is seriously injured. Colonel Travis falls out of the plane with the F-117 being destroyed.The remainder of the commando team make it to the 747's lower deck, but military command on the ground does not know whether or not the commandos made it on board.
With limited options, the commandos begin to search for the supposed DZ-5 bomb. Grant manages to make contact with a stewardess, Jean (Halle Berry), despite Hassan's suspicions, and asks her for assistance in finding the bomb's remote detonator.
Officials decide to release Jaffa in order to resolve the situation. Meanwhile, Cappy and Cahill locate and start to dismantle the bomb. They discover that bomb's arming device is barometrically activated. They seemingly disarm the bomb, but it is revealed that there is another trigger.
Jaffa calls Hassan from a private jet, telling him he is free, but Hassan will not be swayed from his plan. Grant realizes that only Hassan knows about the bomb, but none of his men do—which means there is a sleeper on board—one passenger among 400.
Jean spots a man with an electronic device and informs Grant. Meanwhile, the commandos manage to signal to US fighter jets that they are on board and not to shoot them down—using the plane's taillights and Morse code.
Grant and Jean enter the passenger cabin and take the suspect by surprise, but what Jean thought was an electronic device was merely a case of diamonds. Grant spots the real sleeper: Jean-Paul Demou, the man who built the bomb. Hassan attempts to fire at Grant, but is shot from behind by the on-board air marshal. The commandos storm the plane, and a firefight ensues. Most of the terrorists are killed and the bomb is finally disarmed.
Hassan kills both pilots, hoping the bomb will detonate if the plane crashes, but he is killed by Captain Rat. Grant is forced to attempt to land the 747, despite his limited piloting experience. He misses the Dulles runway, but recognizes the airfield where he normally practices flying and decides to try there. With Jean's assistance, he makes a sloppy but relatively safe landing.
Cast
Box office
- US Gross Domestic Takings: US $56,569,216
- International Takings: $65,400,000
- Gross Worldwide Takings: $121,969,216
Trivia
- The film is rather notable in that Steven Seagal actually has a fairly minor role, and his character is killed early on, despite being one of the more well-known of the actors to appear in the film, and a major action star at the time. Furthermore, Seagal is not cited in the opening credits, but Seagal's image was used heavily in advertising for the movie, despite his small role.
Kurt Russell is shown in an opening scene piloting a Beechcraft Bonanza. Kurt Russell was actually flying the airplane and it is seen making an approach into Chino, California. The scene is spliced into a ramp scene from Van Nuys airport. The story line states the aircraft is in Maryland, but all the ground scenes are filmed at Van Nuys.
- The film's plot device of a stealth fighter linking to a civilian airliner had its roots in a F-117 field test, conducted by the famous "Skunk Works". In the test, a "red-eye" transcontinental flight was picked at random by Skunk Work engineers. An F-117 "Have Blue" fighter then flew just below and behind the selected airliner. Engineers watched radar screens for the airliner's reaction. If the airliner deviated from its flight path, the engineers would assume that its anti-collision radar system had detected the stealth fighter. According to the story, the unknowing airliner stayed on its preset flight path. After nearly an hour the invisible fighter plane veered off and returned to its test site.
- This film is also known under the name Critical Decision, for the Belgian market; the German title was Einsame Entscheidung and Final Decision in South Korea. Steven Seagal's image was on the cover, despite being a minor character, due to his enormous popularity in Europe.
- Originally developed at Paramount, the studio put the project in turnaround and sold to Warner Bros. in exchange for the rights and screenplay to Forrest Gump. Executive Decision was considered a hot project while Forrest Gump was going through multiple problems with the script and casting. In addition, some Warner executives were afraid that the success of Rain Man would pre-empt Gump due to the perceived similarities of the projects' subject material (both involved lead characters with mental disabilities). Kurt Russell has a cameo in Forrest Gump as the voice of Elvis.
- Oceanic Airlines is a fictional airline often used in action movies and TV series involving ill-fated air planes. Some scenes of this film were used in other films and TV series.
- The scene involving the F-14 interception was the last film appearance of Squadron VF-84 before being decommissioned.
- Some early model Boeing 747's flown by United and American (some also later went to Pan Am second hand from UA and AA) used to have lower-lobe galleys with service elevators. But later standard 747's no longer featured the lower-lobe galleys.The only commercial aircraft where this feature was standard on were the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar 1, 100, 200, 250 and some models of the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 depending on how the airlines ordered it.
- The external shots of the Oceanic Airlines 747 depicts the 747-200 version of the aircraft, yet all the cockpit scenes in the movie feature the much more modern glass cockpit of the newer 747-400 which has a longer upper deck than the -200 model as well. The same error occurs in the movie Turbulence. This is a common mistake in motion pictures which involve scenes in the cockpit.
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