Air Force One

Air Force One arrives at the tail end of the Cold War action thriller, a genre predicated on the assumption that American military might and presidential decisiveness represent the proper order of things. Harrison Ford's President James Marshall is a man of action rather than contemplation, a World War II veteran who solves problems by throwing himself out of windows and punching terrorists in the face. The film exhibits no interest in interrogating these values or presenting any meaningful perspective outside its narrow ideological framework. Glenn Close appears as the Vice President, a woman in a position of power, though her role is largely reactive and subordinate to Ford's heroic agency.

The film's casting reflects the whiteness of 1990s studio action cinema without apology or apparent self-consciousness. Gary Oldman plays the Russian terrorist villain with theatrical menace, embodying a post-Soviet anxiety that the film treats as a straightforward geopolitical threat rather than something requiring nuance or historical context. There is no representation of disability, neurodivergence, or any meaningful exploration of body diversity. The women in the film, including Ford's wife and daughter, exist primarily as hostages to be rescued rather than as characters with agency or interiority.

Wolfgang Petersen's direction is brisk and efficient, concerned with spectacle and momentum rather than any social commentary. The film wants us to feel good about American power, about a president who puts his family above protocol, about a military establishment that succeeds through superior firepower and determination. It is, in every measurable way, a pre-woke artifact, a film that could not have been made in the 2020s without substantial revision to its fundamental assumptions. That it was made in 1997 means we can simply appreciate it as a product of its moment, when such straightforward nationalism required no justification.