Executive Decision

Executive Decision is best known for one of the great bait-and-switches in action cinema: Steven Seagal, prominently featured in all marketing materials, is killed off in the first 30 minutes. Kurt Russell’s intelligence analyst must take over, boarding a hijacked 747 mid-flight through a stealth fighter’s docking tube to prevent terrorists from releasing a nerve agent over Washington, D.C. What follows is an unusually smart, tense thriller that plays more like a procedural than a traditional action film. Russell’s everyman anxiety is far more compelling than another invincible hero would have been, and the aircraft setting creates genuine claustrophobia.