NoFace for Film

Title: Flightplan
Year: 2005
Director: Robert Schwentke
Starring: Jodie Foster, Peter Sarsgaard, Sean Bean
Rated: PG-13

NoFace for Film rating: 4 out of 7

Flightplan is one of those films that at first glance seems to have the perfect ingredients: a stellar cast, terrific directing and cinematography, and a great set. Sadly, the plot fell short in the believability department.

Kyle Pratt (Foster) is an aeronautical engineer working overseas in Europe. When her husband dies in a freak accident, Kyle decides to fly back to the United States with her young daughter Julia. She brings along her husband’s body for burial.

Since the flight isn’t fully booked, Kyle and Julia take some empty seats in the back row and take a nap. When Kyle wakes up a few hours later, she finds that Julia isn’t in her seat. As she searches for her daughter, the passengers and flight attendants admit that they have no memory of seeing Julia on the plane, which isn’t uncommon since there are so many people on board. However, things take a disturbing turn when Kyle finds that Julia isn’t even listed on the passenger manifest. When Kyle reveals that she’s a bereaved widow, everyone, including the pilot (Bean) and the on-duty air marshall (Sarsgaard) starts to question her sanity, eventually including Kyle herself.

Sounds like a great plot, right? How does a child vanish into thin air at 30,000 feet? Is Kyle having a mental breakdown, or are there sinister forces at work? It’s a rather Hitchcockian premise. A Wikipedia article on the movie described the premise of Flightplan a locked room mystery, defined as a “sub-genre of detective fiction wherein a murder or other crime is apparently committed under impossible circumstances”. Yup, this fits the bill all right.

As mentioned, nearly everything works for Flightplan. Foster reprises her “frantic woman protecting her child” role from Panic Room, and does it so well. She is such a great actress. Sarsgaard is great at air marshall Carson, who sympathizes with Kyle, but not at the cost of the passengers’ safety. And I’m glad to see Bean in a non-villian role for once. He’s not a bad guy and he’s not a tormented soul, he’s just the pilot who wants to believe Kyle but has a hard time doing so. The pace was appropriate- there’s a lot of tension and anxiety, and the audience feels like they’re worrying right alongside Kyle as she frantically searches for Julia. The set of the plane’s interior is very believable. In fact, the DVD includes a behind-the-scenes look in building the set, which is very cool.

That being said, my biggest gripe about Flightplan was the unbelivably large plothole that you find when the truth is revealed. I won’t give it away, but let’s just say that it reminded me of the game Mousetrap. The game features a large, complicated contraption that will only work if all the pieces are in place. If just one of those pieces was off, the whole contraption fails. The conclusion to Flightplan is very similar, and I just couldn’t accept it.

That being said, Flightplan is still overall an entertaining film. If you’re a Jodie Foster fan, you’ll enjoy it. However, if you’re looking for a mystery thriller, I’d stick to Hitchcock.

Technorati Tags: Flightplan, Jodie Foster, Peter Sarsgaard, Sean Bean, locked room mystery, detective fiction

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