Flightplan

Feature films invite us to defy reality, believe a fiction, suspend disbelief. The actor has to make the unreal, real. Jodie Foster has done this in the past with notable success and strings of awards – and often chosen stories that parallel our unwillingness to accept: a rape victim that no-one believed, a paranoid in a locked room that had every reason to be afraid, a scientist that finds proof of aliens. In Flightplan she goes one further – a mother who loses her daughter during a transatlantic flight and whom no-one (including, most of the time, the audience) believes.

Aircraft engineer Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster) is devastated by the sudden death of her husband. She flies his body back to New York on a state-of-the-art airliner which she designed. Dozing off for a few minutes on the plane, she awakes to find her six year old daughter is missing. Frantic searches ensue as the mounting evidence suggests the daughter was never on board.

Flightplan combines a taut psychological thriller with a deepening mystery and tremendous emotional punch. But does the denouement justify the storyline, the switching positions we are forced to adopt about Kyle's sanity and the existence of her daughter? Or is it simply a story that cashes in on current passenger apprehension over hijacking and Foster's considerable acting talent? Foster is at her best, an outraged, highly intelligent woman with a mother's bottled up and barely contained grief providing simmering emotional force.

It is a remarkable testament to Foster's talent that she can carry such an unlikely story. She imbues the confined space of an aircraft with an energy that doesn't wilt for a moment and ensures our attention never flags. Ably assisted by Sean Bean as the Captain, wanting to give her every benefit of doubt but increasingly forced to accept the evidence of his own eyes, and Air Marshall Peter Sarsgaard who plays an interesting yet inscrutable character, we are mesmerised by Kyle Pratt and our own difficulty in knowing whether to believe her. Whether the story was worthy of such talent is less clear. As the pieces unravel we are presented with a bewildering complexity of background information which, without Foster to carry it or Hitchcockian logic to prove it, we are tempted to dismiss with Flightplan as overambitious. As an exercise in powerful acting that stands up as a Saturday night thriller, Flightplan delivers in Club Class, but as the sum of its parts it is as convoluted and full of wishful thinking as someone trying to stretch out in Economy.

You can't say there's a movie like it really. Had a bit more leg work been done at the start, I think it would have even been better too.

I'm trying to think if this required more suspension of disbelief than a normal movie in the genre, and I think it's probably on par; whereas other flight thriller type stuff depends on the viewer on suspending it in other areas, this is more wild, sure, but also far more interesting.

Flightplan is billed as a psychological thriller, and director Robert Schwentke almost succeeds in bringing us just this. Schwentke had all the major ingredients to create something that would be a cut above the standard fair that is increasingly force-fed to an already bloated public. Jodie Foster, plays the recently bereaved Kyle Pratt, who accompanied by her young daughter Julia, (Martine Lawston) is flying back to New York with the body of her husband. So far so good, you might say. Foster is a fine actress who does not disappoint in her portrayal as a woman who is forced to question her own sanity when the disappearance of her daughter is met with a collective, 'what daughter?' response from the passengers and crew.

This response to the missing child sets the stage for what Schwentke hopes will be a tense, claustrophobic, and frantic thriller, dramatically powered by the psychological meltdown of Foster's emotionally fraught Pratt. Unfortunately, this is not quite what the finished product turns out to be. Foster's performance is all that it should be (there are similarities with the role she played so well in The Panic Room), as is that of Peter Sarsgaard, who plays Air Marshall Carson. What happens then is a film that shows early promise - Schwentke initially establishes a grave, disturbed tone - descends into absurdity due to a plot which demands a level of credulousness that defies all reason.

The sheer stupidity of the plot - 'the holes are big enough to fly a jumbo jet through', according to one critic - not only undoes the hard work invested in the early part of the film, it ruins it completely. Peter Dowling's original script would have worked so much better. This involved the slightly more believable scenario of an aviation security agent being forced to participate in a straightforward hijack. Post 9/11, there remains a great deal of residual fear and paranoia surrounding air travel. Sadly, Schwentke has failed to exploit this in Flightplan. There is an attempt to address the issue of perceived Arab terrorism in the film but it seems clumsy and patronising.

There are a few nice touches in the film - the passengers' unease at take off is shown well - but overall, viewers are forced to question the feasibility of the events taking place. Too many questions arise, such as why does Jodie Foster sound as though she is strolling along a wooden stage, in high heels? This is a minor point however, the major one being - and this is central to the plot - how can a plane full of passengers (and crew) not notice a six year old child? Or to put this another way, is it possible for a six year old to remain unnoticed on a plane? I don't think so Schwentke, as much as I would love this to be the case.

Jodie Foster is terrific as usual playing recently-widowed aircraft engineer and mother of a solemn little girl who is faced with terror and dread while on a flight from Germany to New York: her daughter vanishes and no one on-board will admit to ever having seen her. Unintentionally or not, the film takes its cue from the cult classic "Bunny Lake is Missing", but then goes its own way for a compelling second-half. The script is carefully plotted, hedging no bets and leaving no stone unturned, and that may be its only fault: the plot is so smoothly planned and drawn out for us that it loses some intensity. Ironically, the opening (with Foster making burial arrangements in regards to her husband, and later feeling watched from her apartment window) are spookily dream-like, but the director becomes much more sober once the action moves to the plane, and yet his film could really use more of that surreal, what's-going-on ambiance he initially captured so succinctly. Still, a first-rate picture with excellent performances by everyone, down to the last two-line player. *** from ****

JUST WHERE.... to BEGIN???

...O. K.! FIRST: Let us FOCUS on the Title's Content and Context:

If you are among the millions of people who enjoy films with Jodie Foster...We have good news!.... Ms. Foster really takes off in this entertaining cinematic offering in the sky! A good deal of time has passed since we saw her in Panic Room (2002), but for my taste, this FLIGHTPLAN proves itself as an even better vehicle to showcase her talent!

The movie demonstrates similitudes to a Hitchcock thriller from the golden age of Hollywood, both in style and in its storyline development. Guaranteed to keep you in respiratory crisis almost from start to finish!

In the role of Kyle Pratt, aircraft engine engineer and mother of 6 year old Katerina, Foster shows tremendous range of nuanced emotion, in a performance that easily could have given her a fifth Oscar nomination. FLIGHTPLAN has a very smooth take-off, but does not take long to encounter serious turbulence.

Shortly after boarding an international flight, Kyle falls asleep, with her daughter alongside her. Upon waking, she discovers that Katerina, apparently, has disappeared without leaving so much as the slightest trace! Progressively, Jody Foster shows us an entire catalog of emotions. Concern and nervousness, followed sequentially by frustration; anguish and despair; then confusion and guilt; which ultimately give way to stoic resignation and unsettling doubts about her own sanity. The primary secret of FIGHTPLAN's success is that it enables the viewer to experience some of these emotions simultaneously right along with its lead character.

Unfortunately, there is one black hole in the skies of FLIGHTPLAN. It's the kind of vacuum that prevents a "good" movie from being an absolutely phenomenal one! Without flying into any spoilers by divulging anything specific as to the identity of the on board bad guy(s), I will share the following with you: The team responsible for creating FLIGHTPLAN, in an extremely odd and inexplicable decision, chose not to reveal the slightest clue as to any of the background, history, formation, training, experience, MOTIVATION (outside of the $$$), previous or present internal conflicts, mental state and developmental thought processes of the villain(s)!

This lapse is even more striking when contrasted with the background provided for protagonist Jodie Foster's character, Kyle, whose personality is meticulously constructed, with deliberation and great attention to detail. Because of this, the bad guy(s) end-up projecting a kind of "Terminator-Light" image, seemingly lifted straight out of a comic book, thusly rendering the viewer totally indifferent to their intervention or plight in the film!

The cast of FLIGHTPLAN, in general, submit solid and credible portrayals. Peter Sarsgaard, a veteran actor who has participated in numerous films, but who always has remained a bit under the radar in Hollywood, appears in a supporting role. His part is the most important one after Ms. Foster's. Sarsgaard's interpretation of a "Marshall" (a kind of national airways policeman) seems somewhat enigmatic and secretive.

Bess Wohl , who plays the daughter, Katerina , has not had much on-screen experience, but is competent in her role as an innocent child victim. As the pilot, we have Sean Bean, in a refreshing change of pace role. Most certainly recognizable owing to his turns as villain in several high profile films. He is quite convincing as the crew chief who gradually loses patience with a passenger who proves to be simply too problematic.

In 2005, few films managed to stay on top of box office for two consecutive weeks. This distinction is well-deserved in the case of FLIGHTPLAN, which was assigned a "PG -13" rating. It seems a great option for families with children over 8 or 9. For small kids, especially if they might feel anxious about it a little girl forcibly abducted from her mother, do a pre-screening!

8*...ENJOY! / DISFRUTELA

Any comments , questions or observations, in English o EN ESPAÑOL, are most welcome!