by Derek Smith 9/30/08

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I’ve always dreaded reviewing Airplane!, not for fear of inadequately defending why I think it’s a comic masterpiece, which I already accept as an unfortunate inevitability, but simply because it’s the kind of film that I can’t bring myself to analyze. To me, the film is like a great piece of improvisational jazz, loosely held together by an overarching structure – and those who attempt to take it down a notch by mentioning that it steals its “plot” from Airport might as well use the same flawed reasoning to take Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things” down a notch – but impresses through its ability to flow smoothly from one segment to the next. If one breaks the film down to its various parts, it ceases to function like smashing a clock before explaining what makes it tick. Ok, so maybe it’s not Coltrane, but Airplane! does achieve something so simple, yet so rare in modern comedies – a rapid delivery of jokes with very few misses. Obviously this is a completely subjective response to the film and one that during my viewings over the years has never once changed, but let’s not forget we’re talking about a film where a nun hangs herself, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar threatens a child, a pedophilic pilot harasses little Jimmy, Robert Stack beats up a Hare Krishnan and, for the love of God, Barbara Billingsley talks jive. It hardly seems fair to compare it to other like-minded films when it’s so clearly the Citizen Kane of lowbrow humor. It’s aims might not be high but sometimes it’s better to plant a single tree and make it grow than plant a forest only to have it die.