Money Plane - Film Review

I can't stress how distraught I was over this film. No one was more excited about this than I! A lot of the bad movies I've been watching lately have been fairly older ones set in the 1980s and early 1990s. Now, I'm certainly not opposed to going back to the good ol' days, but I really thought this one could pull off an entertaining 'so-bad-it's-good' vibe. Unfortunately, this one is just plain bad. 

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Where You Can Find It: The bad movie crew and I watched this dumpster fire on Hulu, but it's also available on Amazon Video for rent/purchase.

General Information 
Money Plane is a heist action movie that was immediately released via video-on-demand on 10 July 2020. I'd wager that even if COVID-19 wasn't a factor here, it probably would've never made it to cinemas anyway. It was directed, co-stars, and co-written by Andrew Lawrence, however Tyler Konney and Richard Switzer co-developed the story and produced. The most interesting aspect of this movie is it's formidable cast of actors and actresses. It's admittedly a budget film, but Lawrence was still able to sign Denise Richards, Kelsey Grammer, and Tom Jane. What fascinated me most was that Adam Copeland (aka WWE's Edge) stars as the lead. Understandably, the film was a major dud with critics as it currently holds a 4.5 on IMDB, as well as a 25% on Rotten Tomatoes. I couldn't find the overall budget for this film, however I sincerely doubt it will recoup all of its losses.

The Story

Jack Reese (played by Copeland) is a professional thief and gambler that leads a team of rogues who are all deeply in debt to the criminal mastermind, Darius Emmanuel Grouch III (aka “The Rumble”). After an art heist goes badly, Grouch (Grammer) coerces Jack’s team to rob the infamous Money Plane, which is a mobile casino designed only for the most ruthless of criminals. If Jack succeeds in his venture, he and his team will have their debts paid off. 

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Don't mess with the Rumble

The most glaring flaw in this film’s story are the motivations behind the Rumble. I don’t want to delve too deep into spoilers, but it’s fairly clear that Grouch is more of a threat to himself than he is to even the protagonists. It’s clear that Jack is stealing quite a bit of money on the Money Plane, but Grouch tries to double-cross Jack before Jack’s even got the money he was hired to steal. In fact, the security on the Money Plane is honestly really laid back, so the only thing that gets in the way of Jack’s mission is a pair of rapists (more on that later) and Grouch. 

The actual Money Plane is hilariously bad in almost every conceivable way. I think the director was trying to convey that security on the Money Plane is really topnotch, but the plot clearly ignores this when over half of Jack’s team board it under assumed aliases and wander around the interior unchallenged. The badass criminals onboard are cartoonish caricatures that check nearly every stereotype in the book: mysteriously quiet Asian woman; rapist with creepy mustache; arms dealer that is also a rapist; and (my personal favorite) cowboy gambler who looks like he just walked off a Wild West sketch on Mad TV. I never felt that Jack or his team were in any danger at any point, which made the whole plot feel deflated and pointless.

***

Oh look, it's Yosemite Sam!

Special Effects/Atmosphere

Based on my research, it appears that the crew were filming this on an incomplete set and it shows. For a flying casino where anything goes, the Money Plane was really boring to look at. The interior consists of a couple cramped seating areas with a storage area and a cockpit. With the exception of Al Sapienza’s earring, nothing looks opulent or all that atmospheric. This is really noticeable when you compare this to other action films like Snakes on a Plane or Air Force One. Admittedly, both of those

examples had larger budgets, but if the majority of a film is going to take place in only a handful of rooms, they need to look good. Even the museum that Jack’s team tries to steal from in the opening sequence looks like a derelict factory from the outside. 

Considering this is an action film, I figured we’d get some fun shootouts and explosions, but the special effects were awful across the board. In one of the few outdoor scenes in the movie, they apparently had difficulty filming during the evening so they simply slapped a darkened filter on to simulate evening instead. I’ve seen this done in other budget works too, but it never looks good. One of the big shootouts involves Jack’s friend, Harry (played by a sleepwalking Tom Jane) shooting a bunch of the Rumble’s goons via a remote-controlled drone that appears to have a handgun crudely attached to it. Words cannot properly convey how I felt during that entire scene.

One last thing that’s worth noting is the lack of fight choreography. I’ve been a WWE fan since the Attitude Era, so when I heard Edge was going to take center stage in this, I figured we’d get some hammy acting with some over-the-top fighting. Unfortunately, there’s very little brawling in the film, and Copeland really only fights one guy (the “fucking copilot”) and it’s in the cockpit of a plane so there’s not much room for cool stunts. Copeland spends the majority of the film in the cockpit too, so

we never get to see him be the badass I know he can be. It’s a shame, and it feels like Andrew Lawrence squandered the one good thing his film had going for it.

The Acting

Considering my fondest memories of Adam Copeland were when he was ‘Mister Money in the Bank’ and would ‘spear’ John Cena on frequent occasions, Copeland was apparently cast against type in this as more of a cunning rogue than as a modern-day Viking (he actually starred in Vikings). As much as I love Edge, Copeland really struggled with this role as Jack’s default facial expression seemed to

be mild bewilderment throughout most of the film. I saw no chemistry between Copeland and the rest of the cast either. If Copeland ever gets another movie role (this appears to be the first one where he doesn’t play himself), I hope he’s given a role that better plays to his strengths.

Considering some of the star power in this film, you’d have thought Andrew Lawrence would find a way to better utilize them. Unfortunately, only Kelsey Grammer really does anything in the film, and he seems to have no issue hamming it up with his number one henchman, P-Roach. I love Tom Jane (he's amazing in The Expanse), but it’s pretty obvious he does the absolute bare minimum in this, while Denise Richards is little more than eye candy.

The Best of the Best: Listening to the Rumble introduce himself by his full name and alias and then immediately wondering how many takes it took in the film before Grammer could do it without laughing at himself.

The Worst of the Worst: The awful set design and special effects.

Calhooey Score: 3/10 - Bad

Would I Recommend?

*****

Even P-Roach knows this is bad

Even with awful acting and a terrible plot, decent fight choreography and special effects could’ve saved this film by just making it a cheesy action flick. Instead, there’s nothing of substance to be had in this movie. I’d maybe recommend this if you’re a huge Edge fan, but even that would be stretching things. This entire film feels like a really bad episode of Burn Notice, so I’d just recommend watching that instead.

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• I’m still trying to make sense of the Rumble’s plan. He stole his own painting so that he could force Jack into his service, but wasn’t Jack going to work for him anyway since the Rumble bought up all of his debts?
• The Money Plane heist is even more confusing. There’s a point where the Rumble demands to be patched into the Money Plane’s cockpit so that he can see and hear everything, but then immediately disconnects so Jack can verbally plot how to fool the Rumble…
• Also, why did the Rumble send goons after Jack’s team before he got his money? I could understand killing Jack and his team after getting the money, but this all seems self-defeating to me. Let’s not forget that Jack’s team was in debt for millions of dollars, so this essentially means that the Rumble paid a ton of cash simply so he could coerce and then kill Jack’s team.
• I suppose it’s pretty badass for the staff of the Money Plane to shoot anyone that cheats, but it doesn’t seem very practical. First of all, guns on a plane is pretty dangerous all by itself, but I feel like a corpse on a plane would stink up the place fairly quickly. Dead people reek, so I can’t imagine it smelled too nice up there after the second person died violently.
• It honestly feels like the gambling games on the Money Plane were thought up by the writers in under a minute.
• You don’t need to board a plane run by a shadowy crime syndicate to play Texas hold ‘em.
• Russian roulette with two players may just be the epitome of stupidity. You literally have a 50/50 chance of dying.
• Man versus cobra was probably the only cool thing they came up with.
• That last game was just a video of a dude killing another dude. How do you bet on that?
• RIP P-Roach. You will be missed.

----------------------------------------------------References--------------------------------------------------

*Movieclips Indie. (2020, June 29). Money Plane film cover image. YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orxoOBsS3H0.

**Affotd. (2020). Rumble Time gif. Retrieved from: https://affotd.com/2020/07/22/money-plane-oscar-winner/.

***Money Plane. (2020, July 10). Cowboy image. Hulu. Retrieved  from: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/764660262950535180/774858247722369044/unknown.png.

****Money Plane. (2020, July 10). Hold on P-Roach image. Hulu. Retrieved from: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/764660262950535180/774869650801819668/unknown.png.