The world of wrestling seems to be a fine brewing ground for action stars. The most obvious recent example would have to be Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and John Cena, both of who have seen considerable success at the box office.
To a lesser extent you have the likes of Hulk Hogan, who although didn’t reach the heights as those mentioned still managed to forge out quite a considerable career in straight to video actioners. Well at least until his private life and personal views got in the way.
Like Hogan, many wrestling stars have transitioned from wrestling into the world of DTV action movies. Such wrestlers as “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Mike “The Miz” Mizanin and Randy Orton have all had a go within the action genre with varying degrees of success.
One such wrestler is the charismatic Adam “Edge” Copeland”, who has on a number of occasions tried his hand at a movie career, although with very little success. His first film for WWE, Bending the Rules (2012) didn't exactly get him off to a great start with it being an ill advised action comedy which was badly lacking in both areas.
His next WWE feature was slightly better, crime thriller Interrogation (2016), which at least had him feature in a good number of action scenes, and while better than some other WWE productions it wasn’t up to par with what was currently being released in the DTV market.
Surprisingly it was television that served Copeland best, with his supporting role as Dwight on Haven (2011) becoming a fast fan favourite. He also impressed in historical drama Vikings (2013) where he plays Kjetill Flatnose.
Because of how much I enjoyed his performances in these shows I was holding out some hope for his latest venture into action movies Money Plane (2020), but unfortunately it turned out to be not only the worst film of his career but one of the poorest action films I have seen in some time.
The setup could have made for a good movie. Equal parts Passenger 57 (1992) and Oceans 11 (2001), the plot finds professional thief Jack Reese (Adam Copeland) and his team failing an art heist which puts them in debt to crime boss Darius Emmanuel Grouch (Kelsey Grammer).
To make things right Grouch wants them to rob the infamous Money Plane, an airborne casino that is filled with some of the world’s most dangerous criminals. To make things more difficult for Reese, Grouch has threatened the life of his family if he doesn’t complete the heist.
Offering some support on the ground is old friend Harry (Thomas Jane), who is not only protecting Reese’s family but looking into how their first heist went wrong.
This is director Andrew Lawrence’s first stab at directing an action movie so I should give him some slack. The obvious low budget is a major detractor, with the expected digital gunfire being the first sig
It doesn’t get better from there , as when our characters finally get to the Money Plane it is obvious that it is set based. At no point do you ever feel that our characters are on a plane. This must be the smoothest plane in movie history with nary an instance of turbulence. Would it have killed Lawrence to at least shake the camera to even give the impression that the vehicle was moving.
I was more aware of Lawrence as an actor, with him playing a recurring character on Hawaii Five 0 (2010). He plays a similar character here and isn’t an unwelcome presence but doesn’t exactly stretch himself. He also makes sure to keep Money Plane a family affair, roping in brothers Joey (of Blossom fame) and Matthew Lawrence to play supporting roles.
Amazingly, Money Plane’s script is the work of four people, including director Lawrence. With four writers I would half expect something more original with better rounded characters, but it would seem this wasn’t their goal. The main cast are giving very little to play with but thankfully are professional enough to do what they can in their roles.
As expected, Copeland is extremely likeable in the lead role but any hope that Copeland would take part in more action than the likes of Bending the Rules are quickly nixed, as director Lawrence makes the strange decision of having Copeland sit in the Money Plane’s cockpit for the duration of the movie.
The majority of the action on the Money Plane is instead given to Katrina Norman’s Isabella who essentially plays the team's muscle. The couple of fight scenes she takes part in are suitably bloody but this doesn’t make up for the fact they are poorly choreographed.
The only real action Copeland takes part in is a poorly choreographed fight scene within the cockpit where he takes on the extremely large co-pilot, and even this is over in minutes.
Last year Thomas Jane had starred in the superior Crown Vic (2019) where he gave in my opinion one of the best performances of his career, so it is somewhat a shame to see him slumming it here. Still, Jane gives Harry an easy going charm and even gets to take part in the action towards the finale. The scene is short but it is still nice to see Jane portray the bad ass even if it is admittedly brief.
It does seem that Jane filmed the majority of his performance in a couple of days. The same is true of Kelsey Grammer who has some fun as the villain but mostly sits in his mansion and barks orders at Copeland over the computer. At least the two of them have more screen time than Denise Richards who is lucky if she has more than five minutes of screen time.
I feel bad for giving Money Plane such a poor review as I really wanted to like it, with it starring a number of talented performers. Hopefully Andrew Lawrence can learn from this and his next feature will be an improvement over this.
Rating: 1.5/5
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