The problem with ’’Flightplan (2005)’’ is that it is a knee-jerk reaction to the audience demand for 9/11 inspired movies. Coming on the heels of ’’Red Eye (2005)’’, another turkey with similar theme, it runs aground despite Jodie Foster at the helm.
The movie was in the news recently with major American Flight Attendant Unions calling for a boycott of the film. The reason was that it portrays Flight Attendants and a US Air Marshall as terrorists. In the post 9/11 climate of distrust, this was not politically acceptable.
I love freedom of speech. I cannot accept setting up an ’’allowed list of villains’’ which bans policemen, politicians, software honchos and any pressure groups to be shown negatively on screen. To me, this protest reeked of the Indian malaise-- small time goons finding their 7cm of newspaper-space by protesting a movie a week. Be it Mangal Pandey’s born-again relatives or thirsty pandits imagining impurities in ’’Water’’...
After watching this movie, I tend to disagree.
There is a difference between using Art as a medium to express a ’’different’’ vision and being different for the ’’shock’’ value. ’’Flightplan’’ throws up a radical villain with no radical motives or plausibility. It doesn’t have a comment on US Air Security policy nor does it reveal the complex engines behind such a grand conspiracy. All it thrusts upon us is the ’’last man you will suspect’’ cardboard villain.
I love Conspiracy theories. I’d willingly lap up a movie that suggests that Saddam Hussein is the real policy maker in the US Senate, or that General Motors caused the Hurricane in New Orleans. All I ask is some sort of logical cause-and-effect which leads us to believe. In ’’Flightplan’’ we are expected to just accept a grand conspiracy involving everyone from the Airline company to US Marshals and Air hostesses. The Great Cause is nothing more than $15 Million in a wire transfer. There is no political statement, no sadistic terrorist, no personal vendetta... not even a credible hijack!
’’Die Hard 2 (1990)’’ had a more credible plot. And that is saying something!!!!
I love Jodie Foster. She makes you care for the character. She sucks you into the plot till the events are a personal life-and-death matter to the viewer. To that end, Flightplan works. There are a lot of loose ends all over the story. You don’t mind suspending disbelief. You relish Jodie’s outbursts and brainwaves and pain and joy. Never mind the confusion, you are sure it will all work out in the end. All the plot holes will be explained, the loose ends tied up.
It doesn’t. They aren’t.
To use bad puns and cliche, it is a joy ride while it lasts. It has action, emotion, thrill, drama and suspense. It even has luscious-lips Flight Attendants and morbid humour. Then begins the final descent into a crash landing. It ends as abruptly as it begins. What irks most is that the motivations are never clear, the conspiracy never explained and even the importance of the kidnapping not highlighted.
This was a Flat Plan. Al Qaida couldn’t have done a better job of demolishing a blockbuster.
Verdict: Take the train, instead.