Main cast: Rachel McAdams (Lisa Reisert), Cillian Murphy (Jackson Rippner), Laura Johnson (The Blonde Woman), Max Kasch (The Headphone Kid), Jayma Mays (Cynthia), Angela Paton (The Nice Lady), Suzie Plakson (Senior Flight Attendant), Jack Scalia (Charles Keefe), and Brian Cox (Joe Reisert)
Director: Wes Craven
Red Eye is impressive in that it almost makes Cillian Murphy sexy. Almost, that is. Oh, I’m sure he has his share of fanatical fans that will slay anyone that dares to disagree about his sex appeal, but that’s good, as they can keep him.
This is a stuck-in-an-airplane thriller for the most part. Basically, hotel manager Lisa Reisert is on a plane home after attending her grandmother’s funeral, and she befriends a charming Jackson Rippner, who seems kind and gallant and cute and ooh. He even sits next to her on the plane. That sounds great… until he reveals that he’s with some secret organization and he’s with her for a reason.
You see, her hotel will have some important guests: the US Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, Charles Keefe, and his family. What Jackson wants is for Lisa to use her boss powers to have Keefe and his family transferred a suite that is positioned just nice for Jackson’s buddies to send a bazooka flying into the suite, killing Keefe and his family. I’m sure that there is a more straightforward way to eliminate those people without having to befriend an overemotional dingbat and manipulate her, but what do I know, I’m not part of some secret elite assassin gang.
If Lisa refuses, then Jackson will signal an assassin parked outside her father’s place to kill the old man.
Well, the movie is watchable, and the pacing is pretty good to the point that I don’t feel bored. For a movie that takes place for the most part in a single confined setting, I never feel that things are becoming circular or repetitive.
However, the entire premise is quite flimsy. Lisa, you see, wants to save everyone. She doesn’t want Keefe to die, and she also loves her father, and from the get-go, she immediately refuses to help even if it means her father will die. Even Jackson remarks on this, so it’s not like the screenplay writers are unaware of how Lisa is unwilling and incapable to make a hard decision even if it’s to save her father over a politician.
In the end, she gets to have her cake and eat it too, not because she is a resourceful woman but more because luck happens to be on her side more often than not. By eliminating the need for the heroine to make a difficult decision in any way, this movie robs itself of any genuine suspense or gravitas. It’s instead about come see an overly emotional woman weeping and sobbing and trying her best to make a situation worse because she doesn’t seem to know what she wants in the first place.
The movie doesn’t even let her retain some dignity by letting her administer the coup de grace on Jackson, so I’m tad confused myself as to how this movie wants me to perceive its lead character. “Someone that is very lucky” doesn’t feel like a compelling concept for a lead in a thriller, but that’s just me.
Cillian Murphy does a great job as this creepy yet oddly compelling villain, but sadly, as the movie progresses, he starts getting dumber and dumber by the second, allowing Lisa way too much leeway to pull off stupid stunts. By the final confrontation with Lisa, he’s a certified cartoon villain.
At any rate, Red Eye is watchable and at times very compelling due to the chemistry of the two lead actors, but the movie itself seems uncertain about what it wants to do with itself. It deliberately keeps its lead character from having to make difficult moral decisions or face consequences of her chaotic loony antics here, so it lacks any compelling drama to make it more than just a watchable but forgettable fare.
