Airplane!

Year: 1980
Running time: 88 minutes

Certificate: 15

Language: English

Screenplay: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker

Directors: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker

Starring: Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Leslie Nielson, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Robert Stack

Taking a break from the crisis to jam a little.

I remember seeing Airplane! when I was younger. I liked it. Thought it was pretty funny. A lot of the jokes went over my head. I remember preferring Airplane II: The Sequel. Looking back now, I'm not sure why; the jokes are mostly from the first one and it's been so long since I've seen it I haven't bothered adding it to this review. I do remember one great gag where William Shatner was behind a screen all the way through until the end, where it was revealed he was in the same room as the people he was talking to all along. Proper classic sight gag. The rest of it is a little faded in the memory now. Not so with Airplane! which I have revisited multiple times over the years. Although I think I still prefer the Naked Gun series, there's no denying that Airplane! is much funnier than my younger self gave it credit for.

There is a pretty scarce plot, and most of that is borrowed from cheesy airport disaster movies that preceded it. Ted Striker (Robert Hays) is haunted by memories of his time as a fighter pilot in WWII. Still in love with old flame Elaine Dickinson (Julie Hagerty), he's determined to win her back. The problem is she's a flight attendant and he's terrified of flying now. Facing his fear, he boards a flight she is working on, only for the crew and passengers to go down with food poisoning. Ted has to conquer his fear and land the plane safely.

Steve McCroskey (Lloyd Bridges) chose the wrong week to
quit sniffing glue.

Doesn't sound that funny, but the bare bones plot gives plenty of room to hang jokes on. To be honest not all of them land. Some of them aren't as funny as they used to be and some could be considered in slightly poor taste (although shock factor has always been a part of comedy like this). There are perhaps a couple of handfuls of really great gags; some of them are built up and repeated over the course of the film and they build into really great running jokes that mount up and make the whole much funnier than the sum of its parts.

A lot of it is really sold well by the cast, playing it mostly straight as an arrow, so that the silly dialogue really hits when the acting is delivered as if it's a drama. In particular Leslie Nielson as Dr. Rumack excels at this. The repeated misunderstandings, like "Nervous?" "Yes." First time?" "No I've been nervous lots of times." take a split second for the joke to register, and as you smile you're already onto the next one and the cumulative effect of the quickfire joke rate is like a snowball rolling down a hill, and when yet another passenger is choosing to commit suicide to avoid having listen to one of Ted's rambling stories you've gone from smiling to snorting with laughter. There are multiple joke strings of this type that build throughout the film and it's this really smart comedy construction that makes the film such a joy.

Not quite the funniest film ever made its reputation claims, but a great time nonetheless.

Score: 8/10

As you might imagine, Airplane! is well loved and well reviewed - see these reviews from The Ace Black Blog and Aaron at Art In Art Out.