Flightplan
By Ken Parks, January 9, 2007

Flightplan Review Grade: C minus Reviewer: Ken Parks Reviewed: 10/01/05 Released: 09/23/2005 Length: 1:33 MPAA Classification: PG-13 (Violence, profanity)

Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster) is the female protagonist of this thriller suspense movie. She is mourning the recent death of her husband and suffering anxiety attacks. On a nightmarish flight, her 6-year old daughter turns up missing without a trace… well, maybe a few traces.

Confusion abounds when several newly discovered facts come to surface – no one, including the crew and the passengers can recall seeing her daughter, she doesn’t appear on the flight manifest, and her daughter was reported to have died at the same hospital as Kyle’s husband.

Doubt, fear, paranoia, and psychosis has the viewer convinced that Kyle is imagining her daughter is still alive and has not accepted her death.

All surface evidence points to the fact that Kyle’s daughter was never on board, accept for the drawn heart. Turmoil in flight and the issue of broached security causes Captain Rich and Air Marshall Gene Carson to suspect Kyle’s psychological behavior and doubt her insistent claim that her daughter has vanished.

As the suspense builds, the passengers become flustered and the flight attendants are reluctant to continue a grand search. Kyle is pushed to the edge, fearing the loss of her daughter, fighting for her sanity, and no one seems to be able to help her.

The last half-hour focuses on a half-baked and peculiar twist.

This film has some qualities of which Alfred Hitchcock used to describe as “refrigerator movie”, whereby the twisted plot borders on absurdity. In so doing, this thriller dissolves from reality to the almost unbelievable. Unlike director John Tiernan’s movie, Die Hard, where the story line suspends the audience’s disbelief, this movie loses the audience with the introduction of over-the-top plot elements. The urge was there, to depart my seat and get something at the concession stand.

The solid acting of Jodie Foster saved Flightplan. At least she was believable, playing the part of a desperate and hysterical mother. At one point she had me convinced that the Kyle character was delusional and required the handcuffs.

Sean Bean, who we often see as the villain, performed effectively as the aircraft captain, maintaining in-control presence. But the young actor, Peter Sarsgaard, who played the part of the air marshal, seemed to look sulky and shadowed Foster’s footsteps.

Similar to a tragic air flight, the movie soared, leveled off, and then grounded to a plot twisting demise, unbelievable at best.