'Rapid Exchange' is a concoction of 'Ocean's 11' and 'Executive Decisions' or in other words, a film about a 'heist in the air.' Lorenzo 'Renegade' Lamus and Matt O'Tool form a professional thief team (organized by Lance Henriksen), and they plan to steal money from a government airplane while it is flying up in the sky, using another plane sneaking from under.
You may say that it's a ridiculous idea to make such a silly actioner based on such silly plans. You are right. But still, you can make a quite good film packed with actions, with decent budget and first-rate CGI techniques, or, at least, some original concepts. Sorry, this film has none of them.
While watching this one, I remembered an equally silly 'rescue' scene in one old disaster movie 'Towering Inferno' in which a would-be victims try to escape from the building on fire using the wire and a small cage attached to it, to the nearby building. That Steve McQuin/ Paul Newman film, however, had a big budget to build production designs in the fashion of today's Micheal Bay. 'Rapid Exchange' cannot even provide the ghost of it.
FINALLY about LANCE HENRIKSEN. I like him (especially his role in 'Millennium'), but in this film, though top-billed, Henriksen appears only for about 25 minutes. It's time federal laws banned this kind of misleading practice of billing order, in order not for us to paste the unnecessary cautions on the internet. |