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Review by: Jack Foley | Rating:
(In flight) Two l (Post-flight) One
IN TERMS of in-flight entertainment, Red Eye offers a first class
experience. It's only once the film has landed that the turbulence
sets in.
The film is directed with ruthless efficiency by Wes Craven,
who makes the leap from horror to suspense thriller seamlessly.
The set-up is simple. Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams) is a Miami-based
hotel manager who is about to embark on a rushed red-eye flight
from Dallas to Miami.
She is the consumate professional - focused, determined and always
willing to please, so when bad weather delays her flight, she
plays her part in keeping the frustrated passengers calm.
Enter charming fellow traveller, Jackson (Cillian Murphy), who
helps her to calm down a distressed passenger and then spends
the minutes before their flight chatting pleasantly in the bar
with her.
Fate appears to be taking over when the two find themselves sitting
next to each other on the ensuing flight.
Once they have taken off, however, Lisa quickly discovers that
Jackson is too good to be true.
He is, in fact, a ruthless cog in a plan to assassinate the Deputy
Secretary of Homeland Security (Jack Scalia), who just happens
to be staying at the hotel Lisa works at and she is the key to
its success.
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If she refuses to co-operate, her
own father (Brian Cox) will be killed by an assassin waiting outside
her home.
Trapped within the confines of a plane at 30,000 feet, Lisa must
therefore figure out a way of saving her father and the Deputy
Secretary as well as protecting her own life and those of her
fellow passengers.
The ensuing thriller is tremendous fun while airborn, making
maximum use of its claustrophobic environment to crack up the
tension to the absolute maximum.
The battle of wits between Lisa and Jackson is very well played,
with McAdams providing a deft mix of fear and determination, and
Murphy (recently seen as The Scarecrow in Batman
Begins) switching between menace and charm with equal aplomb.
Once the plane touches down, however, and Craven has the whole
of Miami to play with, he seems to lose control of both his plot
and his characters - who resort to tired genre cliches and contrived
stupidity.
It is during the final section that the film loses its grip on
the audience and its faults become all too apparent - a double
disappointment considering the quality of a taut TV series like
24, which manages to
maintain its standards for 16 hours rather than a mere 85 minutes.
If you're prepared for such a bumpy landing, however, then Red
Eye does provide a suitably exciting piece of escapism that's
enlivened by the presence of two of Hollywood's emerging talents.
Just don't expect to become a frequent flyer in terms of repeat
viewing.
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