Michele Massa's blog

Talk relative to too much of a not-so-good thing. The made-as a replacement for-TV prisoner thriller "Final Approach" might've been a tight little B picture at, say, 80 minutes. But the darn thing keeps going and prevailing, reaching a jam-packed 169 minutes. That's 80 minutes of suitable, if cheesy, storytelling spread out over nearly three hours, with plenty of middling filler clogging up the joint.

The film – no relation to the 1991 sci-fi cult favorite of the same term – premiered on the Hallmark Watercourse in May, and it fits happily with that cable outlet's vogue of corny, from time to time enjoyable, from time to time serious low budget efforts. The pick is something of a who's who of the bottom shelf direct-to-video/made-for-wire market: Dean Cain, Anthony Michael Hall, and Ernie Hudson earn top billing, while Lea Thompson, Tracey Gold, William Forsythe, and a host of hey-that-face-looks-sociable types packing in the supporting roles.

It's all as gleefully tacky as it sounds. But again: why so protracted? Buried intense within all the unplanned subplots is a tight little thriller that rises above its familiar (read: rip-off) indicate-ups to provide chilly remedy and frothy diversion. The take opens with a swoop down on on a militia intricate; FBI negotiator Jack Bender (Cain) does his best to escape bloodshed, but his bosses from itchy trigger fingers, and mayhem ensues. Stable forward a spell, where Jack has resigned in protest. He hops a flight to L.A., and wouldn't ya be familiar with it, the skid gets hijacked by arsonist Greg Gilliad (Hall), who demands the next report of the same militia leader (Forsythe) from the FBI surprise attack. Ah, but Gilliad is a trainee of the Hans Gruber School of Crooked Planning, and perhaps the hijacking is in some measure of a greater, mysterious plan.

While everything here is cut-down-and-pasted from a wide variety of other films, there's enough zing in the right spots to keep things compelling. Cain and Lobby do quality persuade – they effectiveness be meagre by underdeveloped recipe roles, but at least they bring a certain energy. The opportunity FBI set upon sequence is crisp, several strung up showdowns between hijackers and hostages are gripping, the final shootout moves nicely, and in regard to all its eye-rolling goofiness, the bit where Jack and a fellow passenger (Barry Livingston) have to soil the plane, Karen Coloured-design, actually works.

All of this adds up to a nice chunk of ridiculous entertainment. Cast in your obligatory chattels concerning Jack's former boss monitoring the situation from the ground and you've got, hey, look! 80 minutes right on the nose. That's ample supply to save an commonplace B picture; we'll even let ten extra minutes of padding fly by, if you're afraid of the shorter game antiquated.

Oh, but no. The filmmakers (Hallmark veteran Armand Mastroianni directed; "Heroes" co-producers Adam Armus and Nora Kay Foster provided the script) were apparently required to submit a "three hour television event" for the channel, and so we get a maddening amount of extraneous rubbish slowing things down, clogging up the action, snoozing up the drama.

Subplot One features Thompson as Jack's worried wife, who, in between bouts of connivingly-wringing, also conveniently serves as a FAA top dog who's able to bark orders and sell the feds reassurances that her hubby's doing the best he can. Subplot Two finds Gold as a local TV newscaster who offers videophone reports from the sky; when she's not stuck offering dull plot recaps to anyone who'll obey, she's the subject of limp commentary on the scuttlebutt industry (her slimy bosses don't care about her security, one about big ratings, you see). Subplots Three wholly Whatever involve on the sick-list passengers, assassinations of Senators, kidnapped housewives, helpful swarm attendants, and so on. If there's a disaster movie situation you've seen before, odds are you'll go through it again here.

All that extra baggage weighs the movie down until it's exactly not fun anymore. It's able to pick up in spots, but should we have to sit through all that mediocre meeting about all those mediocre side characters to irk to it? It's all just too much to keep "Final Approach" in the air.