ALL-American hero foils cold-hearted intellectual European terrorist by using blood and guts to win out over calculating sadism.
Ring a bell? This is, of course, the plot of that excellent action block-buster, Die Hard. It is also the plot of Passenger 57, a film doing extraordinarily well at the box-office in the US, which goes to show it is hard to have too much of a violent thing.
And there is plenty of violence in this hijack adventure, including two innocents being shot in the temple from point-blank range, lots of tight shots of chests being churned up by Uzis and plenty of martial arts action.
Playing the all-American hero is Wesley Snipes, whose character goes by the name of John Cutter (who thinks up these butch names?), an anti-terrorism expert with a penchant for wearing overly-tight T-shirts and a scowl that would turn milk sour.
Cutter is having more than a little trouble getting over his wife's violent death, so his friend Sly Delvecchio (Tom Sizemore) helps him out by getting him a top job in anti-terrorism with a major airline.
Reluctantly, he agrees, but on the flight to his new job the plane is hijacked by top terrorist Charles Rane and his band of ruthless killers.