Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Flightplan, March 22, 2008
Kyle Pratt and her daughter Julia board a plane in Germany to bring the body of their beloved husband/father to his final resting place in the US. After a short nap, Kyle wakes only to discover her daughter is missing from her seat. After searching on her own, she seeks help from the crew, but none of the passengers remember seeing Julia. After further inquiries, it is disclosed that Julia wasn't even listed as traveling on the flight. Everyone writes Kyle off as being in mourning, and even unstable. For just a moment Kyle starts to believe she may be losing it, but then stands firm. Julia is her daughter, and she would not make this kind of mistake regarding something so important. As Kyle begins her own search, it shocks everyone to find out that she is in fact one of the propulsion engineers of this plane and will be searching every inch to locate her daughter.
At first I couldn't believe that none of the passengers would admit to seeing Julia, but then as they are interviewed, it is amazing how many were too busy with families, business, etc. to really notice or pay attention. I expect it is pretty much how we all are. As Kyle's sanity is brought into question, we start to wonder who is right. Did we really see Julia? Jodie Foster is so strong in this movie. I like that she is proactive instead of reactive.
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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
What movie did these other people see??? Bad Movie, September 26, 2005
I don't know what movie these other people saw, but it certainly wasn't the one that was shown in my theater. Flightplan is a movie that demands your attention because it's loud and in your face. Not because they put any thought into it.
*** SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS ***
The people that we were to believe were terrorists on the plane that she just happened to imagine the night before the flight??? So they try to throw you off on purpose but without any reason other than to throw you off. So ok you look past that.
How did they know she would ship the body home? This isnt' the FBI or some elite squad with this plan...It's a Coroner, a flight attendent and a marshall? How would they know all that? Ok, so maybe because for the movies sake you look past that too.
Just because you design an engine DOES NOT mean you know the ins and outs of every bit of an airplane. You do not know that if you cross two unmarked wires out of dozens of intertwined wires that it will cause the air masks to drop. You cannot cross power wires with certain wires all attached to the same spot and only cause blackouts in one part of the plane. She designed the engine. Maybe she knows a layout and weight proportion to those layouts, but every nook and cranny...come on now. But ok forget that too.
So on top of all that, these people planned that NOBODY and I mean NOBODY getting on the plane, sitting by them, in front of them and the flight attendents would see the girl ever. EVER. As they pointed out THEY WERE THE FIRST PEOPLE ON THE PLANE. How did the flight attendents not see her. And how could they plan that??? How did they know that the kids in front of them wouldn't look over their seats just as they were doing the entire rest of the movie? If you look past this one, I'm in shock, but ok again you did.
And let's just say we look past all of that, which I truly don't know how you could. But let's just say you did...How did they book the seats so the marshall could watch her??? You just can't do that. As I stated before, it's a coroner, a flight attendent and a marshall. Not the FBI, James Bond or any elite terrorist squad. Just 3 greedy people. One who works for an airline.
The movie is a joke. Sure Jodie Foster is great and so is Peter Sarsguard. But performances aside, what a joke of a movie.
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17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
3 1/2 star thriller starring Jodie Foster., September 26, 2005
Kyle (Jodie Foster), a former engineer for a large aerospace firm in Berlin, packs up her home and takes her daughter, Julia (Marlene Lawston) and her husband's dead body to the airport; they are flying back to New York, to start over. The flight happens to be on a new double decker jumbo jet (think the new Airbus jet) that she helped design. Kyle and her daughter get settled and a couple of hours into the flight, Kyle wakes up to find Julia missing. Kyle becomes frantic and insists that the plane be searched from head to toe. Since Kyle and her daughter were the first people on the plane, no one saw Julia. The captain (Sean Bean) listens to the accounts of his flight attendants, including Stephanie (Kate Beahan) and Fiona (Erika Christensen), who confirm that Julia was never on the manifest or seen, before finally agreeing to a search lead by the Air Marshall, Carson (Peter Saarsgard). Things don't go well.
"Flightplan", Jodie Foster's newest film, is a promising, taut thriller that ends with a whimper. Directed by Robert Schwentke, the film works well for a long time and then falls victim to many of the problems that plague thrillers.
Beginning promisingly, we meet the grieving Kyle (Foster) who is mourning her husband's death. She has conversations with her dead husband, in the empty Berlin subway, or the empty snow swept streets. Her loss is significant and it isn't any easier that it happened in a foreign country, that she has a young daughter, or that there seems to be some question as to whether her husband slipped off the snowy roof or committed suicide. The film quickly establishes that Kyle and her husband have been in Berlin for a long time; six-year old Julia doesn't even know what type of food they have in America, so the trip home is a bit disorienting.
Both of these factors; her grief and the disorienting trip home, help establish Kyle's vulnerability. At one point, a therapist (Greta Scacchi) on board is asked to speak to Kyle and she is easily swayed by the therapist's suggestions. All the people who are constantly telling her that Julia was never on the plane, or worse, begins to have an effect on her and she begins to question the fact herself. This is all highly effective and works extremely well.
The plane itself is a unique and interesting setting for a thriller. Two stories, with the capability of carrying almost five hundred people at 30,000, the plane is immense, with many hiding places. Of course, it helps that Kyle is an engineer who worked on part of the plane. She knows the ins and outs, the compartments, how to get into the holds, and more. This works both for and against her. She can tell when the flight crew isn't being thorough, but she also becomes more of a threat to the safety of the plane. Which is why Carson is asked to detain her when no one can find her daughter and she becomes a bit violent.
The set and the camera work add to the feeling of claustrophobia throughout. Not only do we get a sense of Kyle's frustration, in this relatively tiny, enclosed space, but these two elements help to give us the feeling these same passengers are experiencing. Yes, the plane is huge, the largest ever built, but it is still basically a tin can holding 450 people.
When Kyle realizes that the search is not going to continue, she takes matters into her own hands. Foster's portrayal of this desperate woman is very good. Throughout, Kyle remains passionate and smart, two qualities not often found in a female protagonist. If a heroine is smart, she is usually cold and calculating, because she has to figure things out. Naturally, as a mother, Kyle is distraught over the disappearance of her daughter. Even more distraught now that she is alone. The blend of emotions seems natural and all credit for this should go to Foster.
Many people may watch the trailers for "Flight Plan" and say something like "Oh, so she made "Panic Flight"". Well, yes and no. Certainly, some comparisons can be drawn between the two, they are both thrillers, but "Flight Plan" is a more psychological thriller were "Panic Room" is a more action packed thriller. There is a large difference in tone and theme. For much of "Flightplan", Foster's Kyle doesn't know who, or even, if she is trying to identify a villain.
During the first part of "Flight", the director and writers throw a lot of red herrings at us. Is the Captain (Bean) involved? How about the flight attendants Stephanie and Fiona (Beahan and Christensen)? Fiona is a new flight attendant, maybe she is behind the plan? What about those two men who are sitting at the front of the cabin and appear to be Middle Eastern? What about Kyle herself? Is she crazy? Does she imagine that her daughter is with her?
Things start to unravel a bit when Kyle finally realizes she is sure that Julia was on the plane. This moment is not as conclusive as necessary to suddenly make the audience go `aha' and start rooting for Kyle. Until, and even after, this point, doubt is successfully cast on whether Kyle's daughter is a figment of her imagination or real.
When the final reveal is made it seems a bit lacking. For all of the effort made to make everyone seem to be the villain, the actual identity of the villain is disappointing and there doesn't seem to be enough motivation for their actions. Why does this person want all of this to happen? It doesn't seem to have enough gravitas to make the film that memorable.
The final few scenes are so overly dramatic that they seem to be from a different movie all together, or perhaps a television soap opera. I half imagined Susan Lucci's Erica Kane character in place of Foster's Kyle as she walks through... I will not reveal that much. Let's just say that the final few scenes are slow, poorly written and anticlimactic. In a thriller, you want the audience huffing and puffing, on the edge of their seat until the very final frame of film. Anytime wasted should not be at the end. This is your last chance to leave an impression with the audience. If the ending is slow, the audience may feel the same way.
"Flightplan" is a suspenseful, well-made film for the most part. But the film also suffers from the same problems a lot of thrillers have. Because Foster makes so few films, handpicking every project, you would expect that she would choose a thriller that was so tightly plotted a drop of water couldn't get through. In fact, the film has a number of holes in the plot, some large enough for the large jumbo jet to fly through on its way to New York via Berlin.
Catch a bargain matinee or rent the DVD.
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