Everything is typical here, the Buddy-Genre, the action, the good ones, the evil ones, the mercenaries, and even the dumb ones (of the passengers).
Butler is Butler (bold and sympathetic), Colter is Colter (stoic and sympathetic), and the scenario is quite the simple one, for an audience that needs 1 and a half hours of escaping reality.
And it works. One of the most forgettable movies you can imagine, with almost no background stories, with almost no character development, with almost no depht, it can draw you in until you are one of the few passengers, and later a part of the Captain's rescue mission.
The movie is well made from script, scenery and action to acting and music (Marco Beltrami). I rarely felt that it's a movie. Maybe when, after emergency landing, some passengers are complaining. Who would complain after that ? That was a bit too much of a cliché.
I watched it spontaneously, just out of curiosity, and had no trailer seen before.
So I didn't know the plot. I didn't know what would happen. That was quite a benefit.
I read, that the area of the Philipines, where the movie is located, is indeed most likely as it is depicted here. A beautiful, very dangerous place where warlords reign and people are abducted or killed.
