US Marshal Madolyn Harris tracks down mob boss Moretti's fugitive accountant Winston to the Igloo Motel in Alaska and places him in protective custody in exchange for explosive testimony against his former employer. She charters a plane to Anchorage to personally escort Winston to an impending trial in New York. Once the pair are airborne, Winston notices the photograph on Daryl Booth's pilot's licence doesn't match the man sitting behind the controls.
Statistically, planes are one of the safest forms of transportation. Predominantly set inside the claustrophobic interior of a Cessna Grand Caravan cruising at 3, feet, this high-stakes game of airborne cat and mice invites Mark Wahlberg to gleefully take the hinges off his heroic screen persona and embrace the extravagant flourishes of a psychopath who delights in tearing victims limb from limb and gouging out their eyeballs. We can relate to the mob wanting to permanently silence his chatterbox.
The introduction of digitally rendered Alaskan wildlife for a mild jump scare is shocking for its lack of realism and the joins between practical and computer-generated effects in a climactic stunt sequence are jarringly visible too.
Thankfully, Gibson focuses on three solid central performances and bruising mid-air fisticuffs. Her shackled prisoner is unimpressed by his private transport. It transpires that this Daryl is a sadistic hit man hired by the mob to take exquisite pleasure in torturing the snitch until he is incapable of testifying in court.
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