Explosive!
Summary
With Liotta’s unhinged performance and the convincing looking effects, the film is a real underrated gem.
Plot: A Christmas Eve prisoner transfer on an airplane takes on … a bit of turbulence!
Review: A literal lady killer psycho named Weaver (Ray Liotta doing what he did best) is caught on Christmas Eve and put on a huge passenger plane for a prisoner transfer, along with another killer (played by Brendan Gleeson), as well as the handful of air marshals to make sure they stay handcuffed and restrained. The plane is mostly empty (which seems weird considering it’s Christmas Eve), but it’s fully crewed with flight attendants, including pixie-cut cutie Teri (Lauren Holly) who is assigned Weaver’s section. She fits his type perfectly, and he takes special notice of her, despite being threatened by the officers sitting with him. When the other prisoner manages to escape his restraints and cause chaos on the plane, Weaver is able to escape as well, which is a double threat for the few passengers on the huge plane. With cabin pressure in flux and all the officers out of commission, Weaver is able to get control of the situation, but there’s a massive problem: Both the pilot and co-pilot are killed, and there’s no one to fly the plane! Teri is the only hope the plane has to navigate the skies before the Department of Defense blows it out of the sky. While dodging Weaver’s murderous advances, she has to quickly learn how to fly (she gets help from another pilot on another plane, played by Ben Cross). It’s going to be a Christmas Eve to remember!
I remember seeing Turbulence theatrically, and I always found it strange that they decided to release the film in January instead of in December because it’s a really good Christmas movie with a vivid holiday atmosphere. It belongs on a list of the most underrated Christmas movies ever. With Liotta’s unhinged performance and the convincing looking effects, the film is a real underrated gem. It flopped hard, but it was a big hit on home video, which is why they made direct to video sequels to it, but this one deserves to be rediscovered, no doubt about it. Shirley Walker’s score is also very excellent and proved that she was an undervalued composer. The film was nicely directed by Robert Butler.
Kino Lorber recently released a two-disc edition of Turbulence: It has the 4K Ultra HD disc as well as a standard Blu-ray. The image quality is clear and sharp and should pop on your 4K TVs, and there’s also an audio commentary by director Butler along with filmmaker Joe Begos (VFW). Also on the disc are the trailer, TV spots, and radio spots.