Review: FlightPlan
Jodie Foster is one of the best actresses of her generation. Since her breakout performance as Iris Steensma in Taxi Driver (1976), she has given us many memorable performances. These include The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Contact (1997) and Anna and the King (1999). She seems to excel in complex dramatic roles. Like Robin Williams she can make many a B movie come across as an A movie. Who else could be paired with Matthew McConaughey (Contact) and still pull off the movie? She wowed me as Ellie Arroway, so much so that Contact was the first movie I bought on DVD, in spite of McConaughey’s annoying performance. (My being a science fiction fan might have had something to do with it.)
She is back in theaters in the movie Flightplan. Here she plays Kyle, a bereaved mother. She is flying home from Germany aboard a fancy 747 with her six-year-old daughter. Her husband’s corpse is in the cargo hold. As you probably know from the trailers, she falls unexpectedly asleep and awakes to find that her daughter has mysteriously disappeared without a trace. No one on the flight can remember seeing her daughter. Naturally, she gets a little obsessive about her daughter’s disappearance. She succeeds in convincing the captain (Sean Bean) to search the plane. The flight marshal, an affable man named Carson (Peter Sarsgaard from Kinsey), shadows her.
There are the usual plot twists. Is she psychotic? Is the plane going to be hijacked? Are some swarthy Muslims on the flight that she thinks she saw the night before to blame for her daughter’s disappearance? Or was her daughter killed when her husband grabbed her and jumped off the building to his death?
Of course, all is revealed in time. As you would expect from such a fine actress, Jodie Foster gives a fine and wholly convincing performance. Moreover, there is not a bad performance in the movie. It is also excellently directed. Yet in some ways though it feels like we have seen this movie before. Remember Air Force One (1997)? As in Air Force One, there is plenty of running around the parts of the plane off limits to passengers and staying one step ahead of the bad guys. And yeah, it’s kind of neat to see those parts of the plane typically off limits to paying passengers. Like Air Force One, you will probably find your heart racing right up until the end. It is a well-paced movie. The brooding music by James Horner certainly adds to your anxiety throughout the movie. Moreover, since Jodie is playing a mother with a blonde, doe-eyed daughter, you cannot escape being drawn right into the story.
So what is the problem with the movie? The fatal flaw of the movie is its script, which has some gaping logical holes. I will detail these in the extended remarks. Nevertheless, it is likely that you will be enrapt watching the movie. It probably will not be until the movie is over that will you say “But what about…” and “How come…”
Therefore, the movie is not necessarily a waste of your money. It is likely much better than most of the other fall fare in the theaters. It will engross you from beginning to end. But because of the holes in the script and because both the producers and the directors did not take the time to fix them (which were eminently fixable) this film, like the plane, while it gets off the ground never really makes it into the stratosphere.
3 out of 4 stars. Spoilers in the extended remarks.
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