Where I Watched It: Starz

English Audio Description?: No

I’m continuing to branch out my reach and targeting more streaming services. if they want to exist in streaming wars, accessibility is key. Starz chose not to be accessible, so I choose to hold them accountable. Plus, Starz is under the Lionsgate umbrella, and guess who made Plane? One guess.

Plane stars Joey Slotnick as a passenger on a plane that goes down in an unfortunate warlord situation. it is obviously up to Joey Slotnick to save the day, that’s why he’s in the film. Why else would you revive the career of Joey Slotnick? Oh, he’s just some random passenger? Shame. For shame.

Turns out this is another Gerard Butler film that managed a theatrical run. He’s deep into what would be the straight to video part of his career, but unlike the 90’s when we banished Steven Seagal and Jean Claude Van Damme to the straight to video market, butler is living his best life on the big screen. Along for the ride is Luke Cage himself, Mike colter, so I’m kinda glad this went theatrical, because Colter deserves a big career. Also, Tony Goldwyn appears. So there’s that.

Butler is in the hero role, but he’s not playing a man with a particular set of skills, but rather just a pilot with a long career. He doesn’t know karate, and he wasn’t a trained sniper. he’s just a guy. So it’s less of a Taken inspiration than a Die hard, where he feels like an average joe that just steps up. it helps that Colter is supposedly this dangerous convict, and the two of them need to rely on each other to survive, but it is refreshing.

Except, there’s so much action in this film, i really couldn’t follow it. it was rough. There’s some nice banter at the top, but the longer the movie goes, the more gunfights, knife battles, and people dropping dead where you wonder… who was that? That’s what would happen for any blind person watching this film without audio description as i did, and all because Starz, which is older than services that have accessibility like Peacock, MAX, Apple plus, Disney plus, Tubi, Paramount Plus, and just about every damn service, somehow is still lacking accessible titles. When the other companies start at launch with audio description, and a service that’s been around as a pay cable channel since The WB and UPN were still things doesn’t, says more about how Starz feels about the blind community.

So, Starz, get off your lazy asses and add audio description, because as much as i would have loved to watch joey Slotnick kick some ass, this shit is unwatchable.

Final Grade: unwatchable