Harrison Ford spent decades making wildly implausible heroes feel like ordinary guys having a terrible day. An archaeologist outrunning a giant boulder? A space smuggler taking on an evil empire?
In Air Force One, he pulls off something that now feels considerably more farfetched: an American president you’d trust with your life. Released in 1997, Air Force One stars Ford as President James Marshall, a commander-in-chief who fights back after terrorists hijack his plane. The pitch is essentially “Die Hard, but John McClane is the president,” and the movie delivers exactly the ridiculous good time that promises.
Ford’s charisma somehow makes every punch, speech, and impossible escape feel believable. Nearly three decades later, Air Force One remains one of the defining action thrillers of the ’90s, and it just landed on Netflix as of Nov. 1. Here’s why it’s still worth watching.
Air Force One was originally released during a very specific moment in American culture. It hit theaters in a stacked summer, competing with Men in Black, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and Face/Off, and touched down just one year after President Thomas J. Whitmore (Bill Pullman) nobly led humanity to repel an alien invasion in Independence Day.
This was during Bill Clinton's second term, not long before the Monica Lewinsky scandal forever changed the public perception of the presidency. Air Force One imagines an idealized POTUS. Marshall is principled without being preachy, tough without being cruel, and utterly devoted to both country and family.
He’s also a Vietnam War veteran who received the Medal of Honor. When Secret Service agents escort him to the escape pod, he refuses to leave while his wife and daughter are still on board. In lesser hands, that kind of character might come across as over-the-top and unrealistic.
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