97 Minutes

  • Title: 97 Minutes
  • IMDb: link

This is a deeply stupid movie. 97 Minutes overs a braindead plot from screenwriter Pavan Grover involving a hijacked 767 on its way to Washington D.C. with a nuclear device onboard. It also happens to have an undercover Interpol agent who has infiltrated the hijackers and is the only one capable of preventing an attack on U.S. soil. 

Jonathan Rhys Meyers is the terrorist attempting to keep the passengers and pilot alive, when he isn’t killing them. D.C. is getting sporadic information from their agent about the plane (and from some second never-revealed source about information needed to provide or confirm essential plot elements). Meanwhile, back in D.C. a trigger-happy NSA Director (Alec Baldwin) makes plans to shoot down the plane before all facts are in resulting in more trouble when his pilots shoot down the wrong plane.

97 Minutes is a bad movie that has more than its share of problems before a late plot twist that only confirms both Grover and director Timo Vuorensola have no intention of even attempting to craft a coherent narrative. Characters continue to make dumb decisions against their own interest to manufacture conflict which otherwise doesn’t exist on-screen. Despite how the film may actually end, 97 Minutes crashes and burns and no one can save it from its fate.