Imagine you are at the airport to pick up a family member, when you are pulled aside by airline officials. You are brought into a room and told that the plane carrying your loved ones crashed into another plane and it’s unlikely anyone survived. This is what happened to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character in 2017’s Aftermath. There are a lot of movies called Aftermath, but this one is directed by Elliot Lester. The movie is based on the 2002 Überlingen mid-air collision, though; the names, places, and nationalities were changed. Upon reading the Wikipedia description for Aftermath, I thought I wouldn’t like it. I ended up enjoying the movie, but still thinking the plot and actions by Schwarzenegger’s character were loose.
The Plot
Schwarzenegger goes to the airport and finds out his wife and pregnant daughter were killed by the mid-air collision. While this is heartbreaking and you can imagine that anyone would be a wreck after this news, but there is another person ruined by this event. This is Scoot McNairy’s character. Playing an air traffic controller named Jake, he is accidentally held responsible for this incident. Due to problems with the phone lines and his coworker stepping out, Jake must man everything by himself. When one of the pilots for one of the planes decides to descend, he causes the two planes to collide. Ultimately, it’s a tragic mistake.
Unfortunately, someone always must be labeled as the villain in the story. Everyone tries to do that with Jake. After his house is defaced by people, reporters won’t leave him alone, and his job offers him a way out, Jake becomes depressed. He ends up moving away from his wife and child and taking up an alias. Though we see Jake buying a gun at one point, he never uses it. He’s only looking for protection. This incident is killing him and at some point, he does try to take his own life.
Unsatisfied with the airline’s refusal to issue an apology, Schwarzenegger’s Roman turns down the money offered to him. In a way, Roman does return to some sort of normalcy in the year that passes, though; it’s clear he never stopped looking for someone to hold responsible. This opportunity comes in the form of a reporter, who gives Roman the new name and location of Jake. Which, is definitely unethical and I believe that perhaps the reporter did this for more material for the book she was writing.
Spoilers Ahead
Ultimately, Roman and Jake are two men suffering from this accident. Roman is clearly and understandably upset still. He lost the love of his life and his child, who was pregnant. Jake had to give up his identity and live away from his own child and wife. In a movie that was looking to make someone the ‘bad guy’ it did a poor job in trying to make Jake a villain – rather, he was a sad man who had his own series of misfortune bestowed on him.
Aftermath did, though; manage to create a good pace throughout the movie. Except for the last twenty minutes. It sets up how both men are affected by the plane crash and how their lives will never be the same. They could have had the two reconcile in the end, but instead Roman ends up looking like the one who took it too far. Determined to have someone apologize for the deaths of his wife and daughter, he doesn’t accept Jake’s plea that it was just an accident and kills him. Rather quickly too – with Jake’s wife and son there to see it. I had to ask, what was the point?
On top of that, Roman does ten years in prison. When he comes out, he goes to visit his wife’s grave. There, Jake’s son arrives to exact his revenge. Except, he can’t go through with it – because he was taught better than that. Roman offers the son an apology and while it seems like a cheap trick to be thrown in there, it does echo the one thing Roman has looked for the whole movie. If no one was going to say they were sorry to him, he was, at least; going to say sorry for what he had done.
Rating: 4/5
Overall, I would give Aftermath a 4/5. Not only because it was better than I thought it would be, but because Schwarzenegger and McNairy gave solid performances in the movie. Now, if you’re looking for a plane-crash thriller where McNairy is the bad guy, check out 2014’s Non-Stop.
A girl with too many fandoms to count.
