What 'Air Force One' tells you about a Donald Trump presidency

Harrison Ford in Air Force One

Air Force One is one of those blockbuster movies that feels like a period film even though it wasn't released all that long ago. It's apparently a personal favorite of Republican presidential candidate and conspiracy theorist Donald Trump -- which actually makes a lot of  twisted sense.

A very charitable read is that the movie is kind of like Trump himself -- it can be fun and entertaining -- as long as you don't take it too seriously.

As Harrison Ford was keen to point out to Trump "it was a movie .. it's not like that in real life." But what if it was? If you watch the 1997 thriller -- in which the president's superjet is hijacked by Russian terrorists -- as if it were semi plausible, it's actually quite disturbing and it speaks volumes about Trump's concept of what leadership is.

It's a testament to Ford's starpower that he even pulls this film off. He is totally believable as a president and also a butt-kicking action hero. His signature "get off my plane" one-liner feels like a relic from the '80s, but the vulnerability and earnestness in his performance is pure vintage Ford.

Still, his character behaves in a wildly irresponsible manner from start to finish, and arguably in a way that no reasonable American would want a real life president to behave.

Even if we accept the premise that Ford's character is a combat veteran who has a facility with weapons, we wouldn't want our president deliberately putting his life at risk in a high stakes hostage situation -- ever.

Donald Trump

The film actually presents his character with multiple opportunities to save himself -- which again, in a democracy where the president plays a crucial and decisive role, he or she almost certainly would -- and he opts not to because of the convoluted conceit that he must secure his family's safety first. Certainly, this is a noble idea -- and Ford sells it -- but in reality this kind of behavior would be deemed somewhat unhinged at best.

Air Force One actually does treat that point with a degree of realism. The grounded cabinet -- led by Glenn Close in the role of vice president -- actually weigh stripping the president of his powers because they think he may be mentally incapacitated.

Meanwhile, Ford's gung ho, go-it-alone heroics do wind up resulting in the deaths of more than a few hostages. And while it's not his fault per se, it's hard to believe that he wouldn't be more useful as a negotiator than as a one-man army.

All of this appears to have been lost on Trump, who reportedly enters events to the tune of Jerry Goldsmith's Air Force One theme music (against the wishes of the movie's producers) and has praised the Ford character's behavior because: "He stood up for America."

It's easy to see what attracts Trump to this movie. This is a man who prizes "strength" or the appearance of it over everything else. He is fond of saying "I alone" can fix this corrupt system or provide this infusion of prosperity. And indeed, the movie literally presents the image of a unilateral, muscular presidency.

But in the real world the president himself can't personally beat up the bad guys and then fly the plane home in the end. There are checks and balances. There is a chain of command. And we, generally, want our presidents to behave rationally, not rashly.

In contrast, Hillary Clinton is apparently fond of Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, an ode to the process portion of our politics. She has been pilloried for referencing the film in defense of her private comments regarding calibrating your political statements depending on the audience you're addressing -- but that is a central theme of the film.

Lincoln, not unlike Clinton, was not above some politically shady dealing if he believed the end cause justified the means, and she is a student of that same kind of pragmatic realpolitik.

It's not as sexy and exciting a take on the presidency as you get in Air Force One, but it ultimately is the more effective one when translated into a real world space.