Airplane! (1980)

User Review

• 

  Barneyonmovies

  9 / 10

  WHAT I LIKED: David and Jerry Ducker and Jim Abrahams' 'Airplane,' is structured as a spoof of typical disaster-movie 'Zero Hour,' as it crams a bunch of people onto a plane and has the pilot immobilised so that the central, ex-air force-hero on board has to save the day. That's amusing on its own when the dials are turned up because disaster movies are automatically brilliant to ridicule, but it's how the script surrounds that with relentlessly farcical, off-the-wall jokes that really makes it so funny. From shit actually hitting a fan and dozens of people lining up to shake a passenger who needs to "get hold of themselves," to the infamous "don't call me Shirley," line, it's genuinely non-stop laughs.
  
  WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: It is utterly ridiculous, but it's not trying to do anything else, and there's something impressive about a film so committed to its own absurdity.
  
  VERDICT: One ridiculous joke after the next makes 'Airplane,' utterly hilarious and completely stupid, and it's a rare example of a film that tries for nothing more.

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