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By David Hochman
David Hochman
David Hochman
David Hochman is a senior writer for Entertainment Weekly

Let's make one thing perfectly clear: Harrison Ford is not the President of the United States.

Sure, his butt-kicking executive decisions in the new high-flying blockbuster Air Force One — about the hijacking of the First Airplane by a group of Russian nationalists (led by Gary Oldman doing his best Yakov Smirnoff routine) — will make you stand up and cheer for democracy. But face it, we're not likely to catch Bill Clinton going mano a mano, at 15,000 feet no less, with Kazakhstani bad guys.

''This is definitely just a movie, and we obviously took some liberties,'' says Ford, who in real life has been known to hang out at his Wyoming ranch with a certain honest-to-goodness Leader of the Free World. ''I didn't base my performance on President Clinton or on any other President, living or dead.''

That's probably a good thing. We can all rest easier knowing that our highest elected official isn't counting on right hooks and uppercuts to round out his foreign policy agenda. But, as with all movies that dangle the reality carrot to speed the plot along, Air Force One does fly close to the facts at times — and more than just a little. Of course, sprinkling in juicy morsels of The Truth goes a long way toward making believers out of moviegoers.

In fact, think of Air Force One as Hollywood's answer to realpolitik: Boomer-in-Chief James Marshall is a perfect '90s leader. He loves underdog football teams and Budweiser, and he's got a soft spot for vice presidents with the personality of melba toast (Glenn Close is Al Gore). He has a smart, tough wife and exactly the kind of postfeminist kid you'd expect would be named after a Joni Mitchell song.

But the movie's real star is the eminently believable title character, and that's what audiences will be buzzing about. The lavishly constructed three-level presidential flying machine, with its cabin built to scale, is as close to accuracy as AFO's production designers could make it, considering how tight-lipped the government is about the real thing. ''There weren't any blueprints or floor plans available, so we had to watch CNN to see what the inside looked like,'' says director Wolfgang Petersen (In the Line of Fire). ''That plane's the most classified flying document in the world.''

Adds Air Force One's first-time screenwriter, Andrew W. Marlowe: ''It's very difficult to call the Secret Service and say, 'If you're a terrorist and you want to get on board Air Force One, what's the best way to go about it? And is there a presidential escape pod?' The Lincoln Bedroom was a check away, but getting on Air Force One was impossible.''

Virtually impossible, anyway. At a Wyoming party last August, Ford asked Clinton for a tour of the plane, and permission was granted (the closest the White House came to actually sanctioning the film). The next day, Ford, Petersen, cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, and production designer William Sandell were on board. ''We had to stay with the tour,'' Sandell says. ''Those people are heavily armed, you know?''


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