Red Eye (2005)

Elevator Pitch: Lisa Reisert, a Miami hotel manager, finds herself seated beside a young man, Jackson Rippner, on a night flight from Dallas to Miami. What seems to be a happy coincidence, since they shared a drink in the airport, turns bad when the man tells her that unless she phoned up the hotel and arranges for the Deputy Director of Homeland Security to be assigned to the penthouse of the hotel, so that he can be targeted by a missile attack, her father will be killed. Lisa is not without resources, but her efforts to warn the airline staff are frustrated by the villain, who seems, when the flight lands, to have won the day.

Content: No sex or nudity, although they talk about it a bit, and some drinking. The majority of the movie takes place on the flight as, despite the proximity of the other passengers, Lisa is subject to threats and some violence. Once on the ground she is able to escape, and we have seen photos of her an a hockey player, so we are not surprised when she can run like a hare and can wield the hockey stick in her defence. A character gets stabbed in the throat with a ball point pen which is a bit gory.

A View: This is a very short film in three acts, the time in Dallas airport, the time on the flight and the finale in Lisa’s dad’s pretty extensive house. But it does the job. Rachel McAdams is the charming person we have come to know since 2005, but Cillian Murphy who might have taken us in at that time, now has villain stamped all over him. This tends to frustrate the original intent of the film which was to start it off as if it was a romantic comedy, since from the get-go we are telling Lisa not to have anything to do with the guy. Roger Ebert, most of the 193 critics who saw it, and I liked it. So worth the cost of a download.

Additional Info: Aircraft buffs have contributed to failures in continuity. The interior of the plane is a Boeing 767, but exteriors have included an Airbus A320, a Boeing 737 and a Boeing 727.