Snakes On A Plane
If there were an award for truth in advertising there would have to be very little competition this year for the advertising campaign of “Snakes on a Plane.” The film most assuredly delivers 1) snakes and 2) a plane. The only way a film could be more honest about itself is if the title of “Jackass,” was plural. The film also boasts the best acting this side of the adult film industry and a chromed Samuel L. Jackson, cursing his famous thirteen letter curses, and stealing whatever tricks from Richard Roundtree’s bag, that’s he’s left untouched up to this point. Such observations are beside the point, however.
The very title, “Snakes on a Plane,” gives audiences its most authentic opportunity to judge a book by its cover. If the very utterance of the title doesn’t create a shriek of satisfaction, or at the very least, a guilty little smirk, it’s a safe bet “Snakes on Plane,” is not in your predisposition. If you aren’t predisposed to it’s B-movie premise, then “Snakes on a Plane,” isn’t going to make any effort to convince you otherwise.
The film begins in Hawaii where a happy go lucky four wheeler (Nathan Phillips) encounters a mob hit, on some unfortunate hanging off a bridge. The witness tries to make a getaway, but somehow inexplicably, the henchman and an FBI agent (Jackson) already know where he lives. Jackson offers the witness a chance to do the right thing, and the witness, perhaps realizing he’s what’s standing between the audience and snakes on plane, agrees.
The man, he’s to fly to California to testify against, is mob kingpin Eddie Kim (Byron Lawson). Kim has a reputation for particular cruelty against those who would testify against them. Most methods include various ways of extracting eyeballs from their sockets and squishing them. This time, however, Kim has loaded the plane’s cargo hold with snakes, and doused the plane’s Hawaiian leys with a pheromone that’s meant to bring out the snake’s most aggressive behavior or as Jackson more aptly puts it, “great, snakes on crack.”
The film spends a little time setting up its rogue gallery of B movie archetypes. From the over privileged princess (Rachel Blanchard) and her obnoxious dog, to the ‘can’t wait till he dies’ child and dog hating curmudgeon, the loving newlyweds, the single mother, and the streetwise stewardess (Juliana Margulies) taking her last flight. Films like this derive their guilty delights, like so many empty cinematic calories, by letting you in from the start who lives and who dies. Often the more grotesque or heavily accented the character, the more grotesque the death.
“Snakes on a Plane,” mostly succeeds because of its comfort in its own skin. It never works overtime to exceed or transcend the expectations of its own genre, but rather remains a faithful servant to them. Something that might serve as a detriment if expectations were at all high, but with a title like “Snakes on a Plane,” how could you ask for anything more?