Money Plane 2020 * * * Stars

Director: Andrew Lawrence

Year: 2020

Rated NR

Rating: * * * Stars

Cast: Adam Copeland, Kelsey Grammer, Joey Lawrence

"You owe a lot of money to some very bad people". Ouch, what a bummer. I "owed" it to myself to at least attend one viewing of Money Plane. Thankfully it was a heck of a lot better than 1995's Money Train.

Anyway Money Plane as splatter house tongue-in-cheek, is my latest review. Modernized, post-apocalyptic, bestial, and fantasy-laden, "Plane" is violently glorified from 38,000 feet. Turbulence and cabin pressurization I guess, are absent and just an afterthought.

Shot in Louisiana and distributed by Front Row Filmed Entertainment, Money Plane is for all intensive purposes, a random Lawrence brothers flick. I'm talking Andrew Lawrence directing (and co-starring) and Matthew Lawrence and Joey Lawrence contributing in supporting roles. You also have Kelsey Grammer hamming it up as the villain (I like when Kelsey does that) and actor Thomas Jane being well, Thomas Jane. 

Andrew Lawrence as a first-time helmer, fashions "Plane" as his dare to be the guy who lauds black humor. It's a rabid, screw loose heist pic with various shifts in tone. Barring a sadistic sense of giving it its grindhouse all, Money Plane is like Ocean's Eleven meets The Italian Job meets Snowpiercer (with a little bit of 2004's Saw thrown in). I laughed, I almost hurled, and I found myself wondering why the Lawrence clan wanted to venture so far from their TV stint titled, Brotherly Love (I know I'm not the only one who feels this way).   

Bottom line: It may only run 82 minutes and it might be low budget but "Plane" is like no other piece of bloody, aircraft schlock you've ever seen. As a film about a crew who robs an airborne casino to pay off some debt, Money Plane trades criminal logic and decency for slaughter and predatory sport. Seat backs and tray tables in their full, upright position. Rating: 3 stars.

Written by Jesse Burleson