On a Wing and a Prayer is a catch phrase. It means you are likely fucked. You don’t have the talent, or resources, or training, or something to make it through the situation. You know, like a plane that only has one wing. So how can it fly and land? Well, it is going to need that prayer element. Hope the universe can guide them to safety. Hopefully luck is on their side.
A film like this could be about anything. Hell, most films involve odds like this where the heroes overcome despite not having the right resources and need a lot of luck. But why not use that phrase for a literal movie about a plane problem? Heck, any plane disaster movie could have used it as a title. Like. Plane. United 93. All of them.
But it would be nice if it was about a one winged plane. Unfortunately for the movie On A Wing and a Prayer, the plane will have both wings the whole time, so the lack of resources will come from another place. And the prayer will come from Jesus, I guess.
Damn, no one is in that seat. Looks like it will have to be filled with the holy spirit.
This film is a lot about Doug White (Dennis Quaid), a pharmacist. He has a wife (Heather Graham) and some kids, but really, the relationship we care about is the one he has with his brother, Jeff (Brett Rice). They are best buds, they do a random BBQ cook off together and win? Despite the fact that they just are regular people. This is meant to be a character trait I imagine.
Anyway they hang out, and days later after they go back home, Jeff dies! A shocker for sure. So they go to the funeral, and are flying back home in a tiny private plane with a pilot and just their family. When not many minutes after take off, the pilot dies as well! Damn, maybe Doug is just a jinx. Men around him just dying.
Now they are already in the air, and the autopilot is on, so they have time. But what if he needs the autopilot off because the safest thing would be to turn around to try and land? Doug has been taking pilot lessons. Not really. He did his first ever lesson, which has almost no actual training. So he lacks the experience to get it done. It takes a lot of people working together at nearby traffic control, and people outside of that, to give him any hope of success.
But hey, maybe Jesus will take the wheel?
Also starring Jesse Metcalfe, E. Roger Mitchell, Abigail Rhyne, Jessi Case, and Rocky Myers.
Oh nevermind, seat’s taken, Jesus.
It is important to point out that sure, this film is based on a real story. And hey, anytime a real person who survives a crash and lands, despite not being a pilot, good on them. I love to hear it. I am super glad they didn’t die. But not every one of these stories needs to be made into a film.
This film has incredibly low stakes. I mean yeah, the life of the family on the plane. But it still feels like the film was filled with filler. [Editor’s note: That was an interesting sentence]. I wouldn’t say that we needed some kids nearby listening on a monitor. Did that help much? Nah. It just took away from the plane, which had not a lot of actual content to fill out the film. Heck, the beginning of the film was so awkward. The BBQ cookout win looked like it was all done in one take, no one really was caring much during that part of filming.
The idea of “Jesus taking the wheel” I always find to be a strange one in general, in real life. But to have that be a literal moment for this movie? It is certainly an interesting choice. On a Wing and a Prayer is a sort of religious movie. It doesn’t go as hard as something made by Alex Kendrick, so it feels a least a little bit realistic. But letting the end of the film rely on this sort of moment just, honestly, made me sigh and roll my eyes.
On a Wing and a Prayer is a drama film, not a thriller. It tells a relatively simple story, where we know everyone will be fine by the end. But even if it isn’t a thriller, it should have some level of thrills in it to keep my attention. But unfortunately, it never could.