When Turbulence (1997) was advertised on release, I dismissed it as trash, particularly another pre-9/11 airplane action-disaster movie in the wake of Die Hard 2, Passenger 57, Executive Decision, Con Air, etc. Though the movie trailer does feature my favourite 1990s trailer cliche, which is using the bridge of White Zombie’s ‘More Human Than Human’ to get the audience pumped up pre-title card cue. Turbulence is basically Silence Of The Lambs meets Airport as a poor flight attendant, Teri (Lauren Holly), has to effectively land a Boeing 747 after a suspected serial killer, Ryan Weaver (Ray Liotta), breaks free in mid-air transportation and runs amuck. This is still trash, but highly entertaining trash and something you can watch at Christmas time as it’s set on Christmas Eve (thanks to Justin LaLiberty’s list of ‘Christmas Genre Cinema’ on Letterboxd for putting this on my horizon). What I loved especially was how the cinematographer and lighting technicians cram Christmas lights into the background of scenes, even bringing Christmas lights into the foreground and blurred edges of scenes. Beautiful stuff, gives Eyes Wide Shut a run for its money in that department. Lauren Holly is a fine heroine, though I do agree with Roger Ebert’s negative review where I would’ve preferred supporting actor Catherine Hicks in the lead. There’s also a great collection of familiar character actors working their magic including Hector Elizondo, Rachel Ticotin, Ben Cross, Jeffrey DeMunn and John Finn, all giving instruction to Holly’s character over the phone, most crammed into a control tower situation room and bearing witness as a collected audience. However, the major reason to watch Turbulence is Liotta’s scenery-chewing performance where he takes the coked-up paranoia of the ‘helicopters and sauce-stirring’ sequence in Goodfellas and spins it out into a feature length performance, which is both hilariously manic and supremely entertaining. When his character asked what song Jimmy Stewart sang in It’s A Wonderful Life, I was like, whatever it is, he’s gonna be singing that shit when he goes full The Shining mode in this airplane. Directed by Robert Butler, journeyman TV/Film director who also made Night Of The Juggler. Available to rent/purchase on iTunes. Looking forward to exploring the direct-to-DVD sequels. Recommended.
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