When an aerial robbery-bombing goes wrong, a private 747 crashes and sinks in the middle of the Bermuda triangle.
While the airtight cabin provides some protection, time and oxygen are running out.
Can Captain Don Gallagher (Jack Lemmon) get to the surface and signal for help?
What is becoming clear the deeper you go into the Airport movies, the more they feel like the programmer class of the Disaster genre.
They will never feature an iconic character or even an iconic scene - they kind of just get the job done, sometimes fine but mostly just about serviceable.
One thing in this film’s favour is that it seems to recognise its own disposability - the plot is this cast are in service of surviving a high concept catastrophe (in this case, a 747 at the bottom of the ocean). None of the characters are particularly interesting, but the scenario is portrayed with just enough functionality to be compelling.
Airport '77 starts out as more of a thriller - the disaster here is the result of a bomb plot.
We follow the terrorists from their infiltration of the plane to attaching the bomb, to the accidental collision with an oil rig that sends the plane into the water.
The slowly flooding set is well-photographed, and there is a sense of claustrophobia and tension as the situation grows more dire.
The final rescue involved real techniques for raising an underwater plane - thankfully, the filmmakers throw in some believable complications (the plane floods; some of the balloons fail) to maintain the suspense.
There is a grim touch of realism to the finale - some of the passengers drown during the plane’s rise to the surface.
Verisimilitude is maintained by using a real mockup of a plane out on the ocean. And Captain Gallagher’s final rescue attempt looks genuinely dangerous because Jack Lemmon and his co-stars are running through a small space surrounded by a deluge of water.
Not a great movie, but Airport ‘77 is a solid disaster potboiler.
The scenario is as over-the-top as Airport 1975, but the execution is more lithe - there are no singing nuns here.
Easily the most enjoyable entry thus far.
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