McBlog's Quick and Dirty Movie Review: Flightplan

Flightplan (2004)
First of all, Flightplan is a thriller in every sense of the word. And by that I mean it really wants to be a thriller, European-style. There's smooth camera work, quick edits, long, suspense-building shots without a cut. And it takes place almost entirely on an airplane. So if you don't like long plane rides, you really aren't gonna like Flightplan. Or maybe you will. I mean a flight from Germany to NYC takes, what, like 6 or 7 hours? The movie's over in almost 90 minutes. Talk about supersonic flight.
But I digress. What strikes me most about Flightplan is the whole customer-service aspect of the movie. It's like a quality control specialist's nightmare. Here is this lady on a plane and she loses her freakin' kid, and no one takes her seriously. Well, no one except Sean Bean the pilot. But he's Boromir. We love Boromir. Instead, they pull the whole, "Well, she could be crazy and making this up" routine, which is frustrating and makes sense until you stop to think about it.
I can't give away too much of the plot because the uncertainty about what actually happened to the daughter really is at the heart of the movie. No ambiguity, no $$. This is a slick, European thriller that practically hums with the sound of flourescent airplane lights and the soft whirr of processed air. Great performances, although Jodie Foster's going to need some down time after clenching her teeth for nearly 90 minutes straight. Still, though, something was missing for me. It was a thriller without too many thrills, especially the BIG REVEAL, which was, in my opinion, edited shoddily to reduce maximum impact.
It was satisfying, though, to see that Hollywood has shied away from the imitative "psychological thriller" in which all the tension and conflict is just in the head of the main character and the filmmakers are just manipulating us the whole way. (See The Sixth Sense and everything else that tried to be as good as it.). This time, not only was there actually a bad guy, but he got clubbed with a fire extinguisher. Ahh, formulas... One misstep: why do the guys Foster's character accuses of being terrorists have to be Middle Eastern? Why can't they be from Iowa? Talk about perpetuating stereotypes.

McBlog's Quick and Dirty Reviews gives you the lowdown on movies so you can know what you're getting into and possible avoid seeing a crappy movie disguised as something more due to a big marketing budget.