Word: korshunov
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...that "your day is over," then boards AF1 with his wife, 12-year-old daughter and some 50 staff members. Once airborne, just as Marshall is settling down to enjoy a recorded Notre Dame/Michigan football game, terrorists disguised as a Russian TV crew and led by Gary Oldman as Korshunov, a fanatical Radek loyalist, take over the plane and begin their own reign of terror...
...brief glimpses of General Radek (Jurgen Prochnow) plunge us back into the Cold War: As he strides across the prison yard in highly decorated military uniform, he looks the epitome of a maniacal tyrant. But it's Oldman's performance as Korshunov that gives the film its tension and intensity, adding layers to his character's coolly calculating role with outbursts of frightening patriotic zeal for "Mother Russia." There is also a revealing moment when Korshunov gently kisses Alice on the forehead and strokes back her hair from her tear-stained face, suggesting that beneath the seemingly cold-blooded terrorist...
...movie has its serious moments, too: the subtlety of the actors' facial expressions, well used throughout the film but especially in the scenes between Korshunov and Marshall's family, is often more effective than the corny dialogue. And in the air-fight scene, with the terrorists' planes closing in on AF1, a fighter's cold and determined eyes are eerily lit by green light while the rest of his face is covered by his helmet and oxygen mask...
Since the American President conspired with his Russian counterpart to abduct the general, there is a certain loopy plausibility to the premise. And since their leader, Korshunov, is played by Gary Oldman, an actor who can go from purring self-pity to coldly homicidal rage in about 10 frames of film, these terrorists are truly terrifying--especially when the psychopath in chief has a gun to the head of the First Lady (Wendy Crewson) or the First Child (Liesel Matthews...
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