Kosher Movies: Plane

During my years as principal of Yeshiva High School of Atlanta, I would regularly take the students on a trip to Washington, DC and New York City. The trips were always great but highly stressful at times. Why? Because I was responsible for the safety of the students as we navigated the streets of Chinatown, the Times Square district, Rockefeller Plaza, and the subway system.  I always had the students count off to make sure all were present and accounted for. If I didn’t hear a particular number, I was worried. Thank God, I never lost a student even though I had moments of panic.

I understood that the person in charge of the safety of others has a huge responsibility to make sure his charges are safe. This is the narrative arc of Plane, a tense thriller in which the captain of a plane has to protect his passengers after crash-landing on a hostile and dangerous island.

 Captain Brodie Torrance in Singapore is bound for Honolulu. After meeting his co-pilot, he learns that they will be flying through a storm. Furthermore, his chief flight attendant informs him that they are transporting an accused killer and former French Foreign Legion soldier Louis Gasparre. As the storm worsens, the plane suffers damage and Brodie has to make an emergency landing on an isolated island in the Philippines. Brodie learns that the island is run by violent separatists, which means that his passengers are in mortal danger the longer they stay on the island.

The rebels learn of the disabled jet and plot to kidnap the passengers for ransom money. In the interim, Brodie goes into the forest with Louis to try to find help. When they return to the crash site, they discover that the rebels have already been there and killed two of the passengers, taking the rest as hostages.

Fortunately, help is on the way, but it is slow. To delay the rebels’ plans, Brodie offers himself in exchange for the passengers, but they do not agree. How the passengers are saved through the resourcefulness of Brodie, Louis, and assistance from abroad make for an exciting action-filled climax.

 Brodie’s behavior is an example of someone who takes heroic responsibility for the safety of others. He understands that taking responsibility means being of service to others. A Biblical model is Moses. When he witnesses an Egyptian beating a Jew, he is not passive. He actively intervenes to save another’s life. The text tells us Moses looked “this way and that and saw that there was no man” (Exodus 2:12). No one was coming to the rescue and so Moses acted.

 Rabbi Jonathon Sacks writes: “The responsible life is a life that responds. The Hebrew for responsibility, achrayut, comes from the word acher, meaning other. Our great Other is God Himself, calling us to use the freedom He gave us, to make the world that is more like the world that ought to be. The great question, the question that the life we lead answers, is: which voice will we listen to? Will we heed the voice of desire, as in the case of Adam and Eve? Will we listen to the voice of anger, as in the case of Cain? Or will we follow the voice of God calling on us to make this a more just and gracious world?”

 Brodie is a rare breed of hero in today’s cinema. He is a family man who is involved with making the world a better place. His attachment to his family motivates him to connect to the family of mankind. He inspires us to look beyond ourselves to rescue those in danger.