High Forces review: Over ambitious hijack thriller

Film: High Forces 
Cast: Andy Lau, Tao Liu, Zifeng Zhang, Chuxiao Qu
Director: Oxide Chun Pang
Rating: * *
Runtime: 119 min

Lau plays Gao Haojun, a former Special Police officer-turned-security expert working for Hangyu Airlines. From a flashback, we learn that Gao and his wife, Fu Yuan (Liu Tao), are divorced and their blind daughter Xiaojun is estranged from Gao as he was the trigger cause of her blindness. Gao has anger issues, and his irrational behaviour led to the accident that caused her blindness. Gao tries to reconcile with his ex-wife and daughter(Zhang Zifeng), who are also on the plane. But a group of hijackers led by Mike (Qu Chuxiao), suffering from bipolar disorder, take over the plane. He demands a wire-transfer of US$500 million in 30 minutes, from the CEO Li (Guo Xiaodong) of Hangyu Airlines, failing which he promises to start executing the passengers. 
 
Both Mike and Gao suffer from mental illness. The way mental illness is portrayed here, though, feels generic. The only difference is that Gao is seeking help and is on his way to becoming more stable, while Mike is literally going the other way. The film frequently oversimplifies complicated events into simplistic plot devices.
 
Gao is not only trying to save his family and other passengers on the flight, but also wants redemption from his past. But the script prefers to focus on the action beats and leaves the character development up in the air. The pacing is erratic, emotional moments don’t get their due and the overuse of stale action tropes hamper the narrative.
 
Helming by Oxide Pang is showy and lacks grit. Jerky camerawork and frequent edits take the potency out of the otherwise savage action scenes. Slow-mo bullet trajectories don’t help either. Frequent use of colour filters makes it even more distressing. As the movie nears its climax, the action gets unbelievable and looks silly. When Lau does a Tom Cruise, dangling outside the plane, the CGI gets shoddy, and the action looks bad. It gets even more ludicrous towards the end when Lau guides the plane through an emergency landing. The action is wildly preposterous. Pang goes over the top with the helming, leaving no room for realism or even a semblance of believability. In “High Forces” the action set pieces fail to provide the adrenaline rush that modern audiences have come to expect from a sky-high action thriller.