“Executive Decision” is another movie with a similar premise to “Die Hard” and like most of these copycats it fails to capture what made the “Die Hard” franchise so popular; a witty hero and lots of great action scenes.

In “Executive Decision”, a group of terrorists hijack a 747 plane and say they will release the passengers when their leader is freed. A group of commandos and the analyst David Grant (Kurt Russell “Escape From New York”, “Tango and Cash”) board the moving plane but lose several members and lots of their equipment making their job even harder. Also, they find a bomb on board a discover the terrorists are going to use it to destroy Washington and the Eastern seaboard of the U.S.A. so now Grant and the rest of them need all their wits about them if they’re to save the day.

Kurt Russell is actually okay but the rest of the cast let the side down. Steven Seagal (“Under Siege”) has a surprisingly high billing considering his short amount of time onscreen as the head of the commandos. John Leguizamo (“Spawn”) sadly has lots of screen-time as one of the commandos. Joe Morton (“Terminator 2: Judgement Day”) is alright as yet another one of the commandos but he spends most of his time on the ground recovering from an injury. David Suchet is alright as the villain. Halle Berry (“Die Another Day”) is weak as the main stewardess.

Because “Executive Decision” takes place on a plane you can’t have much action so you can’t consider this much of an explosive and fun experience and the film isn’t smart enough to be considered a good thriller. “Executive Decision” is placed right in the middle of the goofy action movie genre and the smart thriller one, making it so it doesn’t work. Despite a few good points the film doesn’t hold itself together very well and isn’t anything you should bother with.