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Review by Vives Anunciacion

Red Eye
Directed by Wes Craven
Written by Carl Ellsworth
Starring Rachel McAdams, Cillian Murphy
PG 13/ 85minutes
DreamWorks Pictures
Opens September 7

The phrase “flying the friendly skies” may no longer apply in these days of terror, especially if the threat would come from the person sitting next to your seat. Veteran horror filmmaker Wes Craven successfully crosses genres and makes his first decent psychological thriller set in a jet 30,000 feet in the air.

Rachel McAdams (Mean Girls, The Notebook) plays hotel manager Lisa Reisert, who is flying back to Miami after attending her grandmother’s funeral in Dallas, Texas. At Dallas International Airport, she meets the charming Jackson Rippner (Cillian Murphy, last seen as Scarecrow in Batman Begins).

The two immediately establish a friendly bond, as lonely strangers are wont to do while waiting for their delayed flight. They even share a drink at the airport bar. The friendliness would cease as soon as their plane would take off.

Jack tells Lisa he is part of an elaborate political plot to assassinate the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, Charles Keefe (played by Jack Scalia) who is set to stay in the hotel where Lisa works. The plot is to have the Secretary transfer to a specified room where the terrorists can kill him easily. Unless Lisa cooperates to change the secretary’s room reservations, an assassin waiting for Jack’s go signal will kill her father. With no where else to go, Lisa tries all she can to stop the assassination without endangering her own father’s life.

McAdams and Murphy, two very promising young Hollywood actors, square off convincingly as each opponent tries to outsmart the other through charming teeth. Brian Cox, playing Lisa’s father Joe Reisert, doesn’t do much as required by his token role.

Red Eye, which either means an overnight flight, a danger signal or an inferior whiskey, is a tightly paced, technically well-made thriller that has all the good ingredients. Despite having an airplane full of passengers, the film’s tight framing confines the tension between Lisa and Jack only, creating a claustrophobic and suspenseful atmosphere throughout the movie. Craven knows this; after all, he’s behind A Nightmare On Elm Street and the Scream series.

At 85 minutes, the film is fast-paced, but the feeling only takes off literally only after the airplane lifts off, nearly 20 minutes into the show – by most conventions that’s too slow for any movie to set up the premise.

Finally, despite the effective thrills and surprising plot twists, the story is really is a corny one. Such a grand plot resides on the decision of a hotel reservation at 30,000 feet. If it weren’t for the good points, I’d take the next flight out from this one. Don’t blink on this one, Red Eye good enough to see.