Out of the Flight Plan Into The Fire (Flightplan (DVD))

Name: plipplop

Hello doyoo user, You have to be logged in to use these functions... Login or register Close window

Send message to member

Product:	Flightplan (DVD)
Date:	08/05/06 (132 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Exciting, no-brain required thriller

Disadvantages: A bit daft really

When Kyle Pratt’s husband dies tragically outside their Berlin home, she is left with the sad task of escorting her husband’s body home to their native New York. With only her traumatised daughter Julia for company, she packs up the family’s belongings and in the chill of a deep German winter, she escorts the terrified child to a taxi and they make their way to the airport.

They are the first to board the plane and Kyle once again has to continually reassure her young daughter, who now finds danger and tragedy in everything that she sees. When a rather noisy family take up their seats in front of Kyle and Julia, they take the opportunity to retire to the back of the plane, where there are some spare seats and there is enough peace and quiet to settle down for a nap.

It seems like hours later when Kyle finally wakes but she notices at once that her daughter is not in her seat. She walks to the toilets to see if the young girl is there, but she is nowhere to be found. She searches the various cabins, the kitchen area and the first class lounge but her daughter is nowhere to be found. Convinced that something terrible has happened to her, Kyle’s panic is soon noticed by the cabin crew members but none of them can recollect seeing the girl at all. Indeed, when one of them inspects the passenger manifold, it reveals no trace of the girl ever having boarded the plane.

How has the child completely disappeared or, more importantly, was she ever there?

For some reason, it took me quite a while to get round to seeing this movie. Although I’m a big fan of Jodie Foster, and have yet to find a film starring the actress that I didn’t like, some lacklustre reviews and a wealth of other more appealing films to choose from meant that this was never my first choice. It’s a shame really, because in the end I thought Flight Plan was a really good film and I enjoyed it pretty much from start to finish.

German director Robert Schwentke injects a certain style into Flight Plan that makes it feel rather unusual. Icy, snowy Berlin seems to have a poignant air of mystery about it, and the effective introduction immediately lures the audience into wondering what exactly has happened to Kyle’s husband. Importantly, it’s a mystery that isn’t immediately solved and you know that it will bear significance to later events. The haunting atmosphere continues until Kyle and Julia board the plane and long afterwards. With the lights dimmed aboard the enormous air craft there is a rather ghostly, sombre mood to the proceedings and you do wonder if you have stumbled onto a supernatural thriller that will turn into something like The Sixth Sense. Is Julia seeing dead people, or would that be just a tad too obvious?

In choosing to set almost the entire film on board the airplane, Schwentke takes full advantages of the restricted, claustrophobic backdrop. Each part of the plane plays its own part in the proceedings and the confinement plays an important part in the story. As Kyle grows increasingly desperate that everyone thinks she is mad, the confined space adds only to feed her madness, and subsequently the impression that she makes on everyone else. With hardly any room to move and virtually no freedom to do what she wants, she is forced to plead with the plane’s captain to help her and his decision marks an important shift in the film. In such a confined space, Julia’s panic was always likely to spread to her fellow passengers and when it does, more intriguing plot elements start to manifest themselves. Importantly, rather than ignore the implications of setting a film post-911, Schwentke instead uses the changes brought about by those terrible events to give the film a very real, up to date sense of accuracy. Indeed, the inclusion of a group of sinister middle-Eastern passengers provides a new line of enquiry. What significance do they play in the proceedings?

Aboard the plane, Schwentke uses a number of techniques to add to the feeling of growing tension. As the camera snakes its way around the confined spaces it often seems to follow and stalk Kyle as she tries desperately to find her daughter. Slow motion is employed with differing levels of effect, often leading to us audience members holding our breath as we watch a slowed down impending vision of disaster. Whilst these things are not nearly as effective as David Fincher’s Panic Room, the similarities are there, not least of all because the two films share the same leading lady and a strikingly similar plot line. Both films feature mother / daughter peril situation, with each mother the only one who can do anything to save her daughter. Furthermore, in both films, the mother is certainly not helpless and will soon have you cheering them along as they start to get to grips with the situation. Jodie Foster was excellent in Panic Room and does just as good a job in Flight Plan, treading that line between vulnerability and helplessness perfectly. Other cast members include Sean Bean, as the plane’s captain. If you’re like me, you’ll spend most of the film waiting for him to show his true colours as the bad guy, if only because he only ever seems to get cast as the villain. Will you be right? That would be telling. Peter Sarsgaard is passable as Air Marshal, Carson, but I was never truly convinced about his merit for the role. There was always something a bit too wet about him, for my liking, and he never really seemed to have the stuff that somebody in his position would have.

Flight Plan is often described in reviews as “Hitchcockian”. With its twisting plot line, it certainly has the appropriate air of mystery to it to partly justify that comparison, but it doesn’t have the final push to satisfy the Hitchcock purists. Whilst the final reveal was plausible enough, it did feel a little bit too convenient, and certain parts of the film, which seemed to have been purposefully highlighted, were never really explained or resolved to my satisfaction. I was never quite convinced by certain characters motives and the pieces of the puzzle seemed too conveniently placed together. I probably wouldn’t recommend this to those viewers who like watertight, utterly convincing plot summaries, as Flight Plan does rather require you to suspend disbelief.

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t hugely enjoyable. I hadn’t really figured out what was going on by the time the director pointed it out and the journey to get there was pretty much relentlessly exciting (the running time of 100 minutes verily flies past). Jodie Foster seems to command the camera’s attention and any audience empathy. Just when you’re beginning to think she’s beaten, she’s back on top of things and in the face of what starts out as a fairly sombre, sad story, there is some exhilaration to be found throughout. It’s also quite a censor-friendly film with little that would disturb or frighten younger viewers (the film sits comfortably at the 12 certificate mark, with just a few moments of violence to put it there.)

I’m puzzled by a lot of the negative reception to this movie. It’s exciting, entertaining and a little unusual too. It’s not a masterpiece, but it’s still the best thriller I’ve seen in a while.

Recommended

Summary: Foster excels in Hitchcock wannabe