Flightplan (2005) User Reviews (687)

Flightplan Falls Apart

[reesskennedy · 6/10 · 11 October 2005]

Flightplan is a psychological thriller that takes place almost entirely on an air-born jumbo jet en route to New York, from Berlin. Jodie Foster plays Kyle, a mother who find that her daughter is missing after awaking from a nap. The jet also carries Kyle's husband, who recently died and rests in his casket in the cargo hold below. Kyle becomes increasingly frantic as she searches the plane for her daughter without success. The crew becomes adversarial, writing her off as a loony when they check the flight manifesto and find no record of her daughter ever being on board. Thus enters the psychological component of the film. Not only is the audience confused as to what has happened, but Kyle, after speaking with an on-board psychiatrist, also begins to have doubts about her own psychological stability in the wake of her husband's death. No one is sure what to believe, until a subtle clue jolts Foster back to reality, and back to her MacGuyver like maneuvers to attempt to recover her lost daughter.

It's an interesting premise, and oddly similar to Foster's previous film, Panic Room, in which her maternal character is forced into a confined space with no outlet. In keeping with most of Foster's performances, she plays a strong-willed, intelligent woman who overcomes difficult circumstances. As expected, Foster delivers, and pulls the audience into the story. I was disappointed, however. Foster has more to offer than Flightplan is capable of giving her. Flightplan, while entertaining, remains among those psychological-thrill-rides that are only as successful as their audience is unsuccessful in knowing the truth during the course of the film. To achieve this, the film has to throw a slew of false leads and suspicious looking characters into early shots in order to have the audience questioning.

I'm not fond of this technique. It's possible to keep the audience in suspense, and guessing without trickery. To me, this degrades the integrity of a storyline.

I was pulled in by the impressive marketing campaign of Flightplan and went to theaters excited. The film lived up to the aesthetic advertised -- a slick blue hue that reminds the audience of the snowfall in Berlin, the death of a husband and father, and the unfortunate and unforgiving circumstances that have befallen Kyle and her young daughter. And while this makes for a very sleek looking film, in the end, the fantastical, convoluted storyline cannot be realistically reconciled. I left the theater feeling somewhat cheated. While I realize it was a story and therefore ought to be granted a liberal amount of leniency when it comes to plausibility, Flightplan went to far outside the realm of conceivability. There were too many factors that had to conspire in favor of one person for the films storyline to hold together.

The real problem with Flightplan is that the more you think back, the more you become frustrated with how inconceivable the whole charade was; the more you become irritated with how often you were lead to wonder about something eventually irrelevant. There are some films that don't give you all the answers and pull you along on a suspenseful ride, and leave you feeling fulfilled when you finally figure everything out, and everything fits together. Flightplan concludes, you know the culprit, and then you think back, and nothing fits together.

Thriller that starts off good but falls apart at the end.

[poolandrews · 5/10 · 16 May 2010]

Flightplan starts in Berlin in Germany as grieving widow Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster) & her young six year old daughter Julia (Marlene Lawston) board a flight to New York, together with her dead husband in the cargo hold who they intend to bury back in the US the plane takes off for it's long journey to New York. Kyle & Julia both fall asleep, when Kyle wakes up Julia has gone. At first Kyle thinks Julia is wandering around somewhere but after checking the plane Kyle can see no sign of her daughter. Becoming increasing worried about her missing daughter Julia demands that the plane is searched, Captain Rich (Sean bean) is unsure what to think as no-one remembers even seeing Julia & she is no present on the passenger manifesto either. With no record of Julia ever having boarded the plane Kyle's accusations are not taken seriously but she know's that Julia is somewhere on the plane & Kyle is going to find her...

Directed by Robert Schwentke one has to say that for two thirds of it's duration Flightplan is a neat little mystery thriller in the vein of Alfred Hitchcock's classic The Lady Vanishes (1933) although here instead of an old woman disappearing on a train a young girl goes missing on a plane, unfortunately the final third is a bit of a mess that really stretches credibility. While the first two thirds are nicely done with a gradual build-up of suspense & tension revolving around the mysterious disappearance of a young girl the explanation offered during the final third is just daft & full of plot holes. It seem like after a slow yet interesting first two thirds of Flightplan the makers decided they needed to up the action & pace & turned it into an action thriller with fights, shooting, explosions & the expected face-off between the heroine & villain. Some of the plot holes are gaping & too big to ignore like the idea that an airline would pay a huge ransom to a terrorist they have never even spoken to, how does the villain expect to get the money anyway? What proof doe they have it was ever really deposited in the bank account? The idea that a woman can get on a plane with a young girl & no-one notices the girl is absurd, the kidnapping & hiding of the girl again without anyone seeing anything is hard to believe & the villains plan was over complicated anyway relying on many coincidences, luck & pure chance to succeed as how did they manage to get themselves on the same flight as Kyle? How did they know for certain Kyle would go crazy & actually open the coffin? How were they going to make sure they were there when Kyle did open the coffin? Kidnapping a young girl in a plane cabin full of passengers is risky to say the least, what if Kyle hadn't gone to sleep or if Julia had woken up & screamed? At 90 odd minutes it moves along at a decent pace & while it does get very silly at the end the first two thirds are really quite good. The character's are thin, no-one is given any sort of background & even Kyle is very shallow as a character while her daughter barely gets two lines. There's also a quick stab at reversing expectations as the blatantly suspicious looking Arab guy's prove to be good blokes while the so-called all American hero protector on the flight turns out to be slime.

The film is pretty stylish as it goes with nice clean bright cinematography, there's no shaking camera here or quick machine gun editing. The film mixes suspense & tension & all out action with mixed results, the build-up is good & intriguing while the pay-off is loud, noisy & has zero credibility. The CGI computer effects are alright, they can't even film a proper plane taking off now it has to be a CGI computer effect. Not much violence until the last third & only one person dies in the whole thing anyway. It's just a pity that the script couldn't come up with a more plausible explanation for the first two thirds of the Flightplan which are suspenseful, it's like every time one idea is used to cover a plot hole or explain something it raises more questions & plot holes.

With a supposed budget of about $55,000,000 this had a lot of money spent on it, personally I think the same years Red Eye (2005) is much better overall as a woman finds herself kidnapped & blackmailed on a plane. The acting is OK, Jodie Foster is alright but doesn't bring much to Kyle, Sean Bean is wasted while Peter Sarsgaard is pretty good.

Flightplan is a film that I liked , sure the first two thirds are so much better than then eventual explanations & far fetched Hollywood thriller reasonings but overall I liked it. Not a great film by any means but a good one none the less if you can accept a few lapses in logic at the end.

A plot stretched wafer thin to provide a stage for good acting

[Chris_Docker · 6/10 · 16 November 2005]

Feature films invite us to defy reality, believe a fiction, suspend disbelief. The actor has to make the unreal, real. Jodie Foster has done this in the past with notable success and strings of awards – and often chosen stories that parallel our unwillingness to accept: a rape victim that no-one believed, a paranoid in a locked room that had every reason to be afraid, a scientist that finds proof of aliens. In Flightplan she goes one further – a mother who loses her daughter during a transatlantic flight and whom no-one (including, most of the time, the audience) believes.

Aircraft engineer Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster) is devastated by the sudden death of her husband. She flies his body back to New York on a state-of-the-art airliner which she designed. Dozing off for a few minutes on the plane, she awakes to find her six year old daughter is missing. Frantic searches ensue as the mounting evidence suggests the daughter was never on board.

Flightplan combines a taut psychological thriller with a deepening mystery and tremendous emotional punch. But does the denouement justify the storyline, the switching positions we are forced to adopt about Kyle's sanity and the existence of her daughter? Or is it simply a story that cashes in on current passenger apprehension over hijacking and Foster's considerable acting talent? Foster is at her best, an outraged, highly intelligent woman with a mother's bottled up and barely contained grief providing simmering emotional force.

It is a remarkable testament to Foster's talent that she can carry such an unlikely story. She imbues the confined space of an aircraft with an energy that doesn't wilt for a moment and ensures our attention never flags. Ably assisted by Sean Bean as the Captain, wanting to give her every benefit of doubt but increasingly forced to accept the evidence of his own eyes, and Air Marshall Peter Sarsgaard who plays an interesting yet inscrutable character, we are mesmerised by Kyle Pratt and our own difficulty in knowing whether to believe her. Whether the story was worthy of such talent is less clear. As the pieces unravel we are presented with a bewildering complexity of background information which, without Foster to carry it or Hitchcockian logic to prove it, we are tempted to dismiss with Flightplan as overambitious. As an exercise in powerful acting that stands up as a Saturday night thriller, Flightplan delivers in Club Class, but as the sum of its parts it is as convoluted and full of wishful thinking as someone trying to stretch out in Economy.

Fasten your seat belts

[jotix100 · 7/10 · 2 December 2005]

"Flightplan" seems to have affected IMDb contributors like no other film in recent memory. Mostly is bad. We didn't catch up with this picture until recently. Frankly, we are puzzled as to why the hatred. Granted, the film had the potential for being better, but it's not the total failure as some of the comments in this forum will make one believe. It appears there's an agenda to mark "Flightplan" comments as not useful.

Director Robert Schwentke working with Peter Dowling and Billy Ray's screen play, hasn't added much to the film in order to make it a thriller to be reckoned with, but, in general, the film is not a total waste, as seems to be the perception among contributors.

In a way, "Flightplan" plays with the viewer's perception as to who is behind the disappearance of Julia, the six year old girl traveling with her mother, Kyle, to New York. Kyle has suffered a great tragedy in her life when her husband was found dead in her building's courtyard. The fact that Kyle hasn't been able to accept the death is clear in the first sequence when we see her sitting inside the Alexanderplaz metro station in Berlin.

Kyle, an aircraft designing engineer, is a good mother. One can imagine her panic when she wakes up from a nap to find Julia's gone. No one seems to have noticed the little girl; there is no record of she ever been on board. Kyle meets resistance from the crew of the flight. Even the sky marshal, Carson, is no help at all. What's a mother to do? If one is in Kyle's shoes, one starts taking matter into her own hands.

Jodie Foster does a good job portraying Kyle. She is a mother who doesn't take no for an answer. In fact, she is the one that unravels the mystery surrounding her daughter's disappearance. The climax sequence is perfectly set, as one would expect it to be.

Peter Sarsgaard, is Carson, the sky marshal traveling in the economy section. He is in charge of the safety of the passengers on the flight. In an unusual role for him, Mr. Sarsgaard has some good chances in the movie. Sean Bean plays the pilot of the jumbo jet. Kate Beahan is seen as one of the flight attendants. Erika Christiensen is also part of the crew.

The best way to enjoy the film is not to compare it to anything else and just go for the entertaining value in it because we know this is not a ground breaking film, but thanks to Mr. Schwentke and his cast, it offers us a bumpy ride of a film.

Enough of a good thing to get value for the price

[gregsrants · 6/10 · 1 October 2005]

You know how angry, frustrated and anxious you get when an airline loses your luggage? Well, imagine being on a plane with your child when you awaken from a brief nap only to discover that your offspring is missing.

To compound matters further, imagine that no one remembers seeing your child on board and all passenger lists and appropriate documentation lead to a conclusion that your child never set foot in the flying tube 30,000 feet above the Atlantic.

That is the premise behind the new Jodie Foster (Nell) film Flightplan that delivers just enough thrills and spills to squeeze out a three star rating from his critic.

Reprising the claustrophobic atmosphere of her last starring vehicle, Panic Room, Foster stars as Kyle, as recent widower that decides to take her 6-year-old daughter back to America from Berlin to escape the memories surrounding her husbands tragic suicide.

However, after catching a little shuteye at the back of the plane, Kyle awakens to discover that her daughter is missing and that no one recalls ever seeing young Julia on board.

Is she crazy? Is it a conspiracy? Does Julia exist or is this all some kind of a bad dream Twilight Zone episode that will end with Patrick Duffy lathering up in a shower? The game, as we say, is afoot and Kyle, under the very watchful eye of Air Marshall Carson (Peter Sarsgaard) runs up and down the AIR E-474 jumbo jet in a frantic attempt to try and convince others that her daughter is on board and that conspirators are attempting to conceal her whereabouts for reasons unknown.

This is the second thriller set aboard a jetliner in just two months – the other being Red Eye – and Flightplan does just as good a job of instilling fear and tension aboard a vessel where mobility, options and hiding places are limited between the nose and tail of the aircraft. Flightplan does find a way to up the ante by putting us aboard a monstrous flying machine. This AALTO Air E-474 can seat as many as 800 passengers and has two stories, 7 galleys, crew quarters and a cockpit larger than my apartment. This allows the characters therefore to run up and down aisles and makes the disappearance of a small girl more believable due to the many small rooms and electrical hardware gadgetry spread out throughout the quarters.

Flightplan had just enough good points to out number the bad – but not by much. First and foremost at the front of the line was the incredible performance of Foster in the lead role. Channeling emotions evoked if she had lost her own daughter, Foster delivers a knockout performance that was as strong as any female lead in a thriller film since Sigourney Weaver strapped on the weaponry and stood up to the queen alien.

Also notable was the support staff that is each believable in their respective roles. Peter Sarsgaard continues to put in one good performance after another and everyone from Sean Bean (who finally, FINALLY makes it to the end credits of a film without being killed!) to Erika Christensen (Traffic) are provided just enough screen time to advance the story without having anyone go over the top in an attempt to steal the spotlight.

That's the good. The bad includes a bad guy who has what I call the Bond-villain syndrome whereas he feels he has to talk out loud revealing more than anyone in the same situation would for the purposes of ensuring us dumb audiences know the who's how's and what's behind the plot, and an ending that is kinda bumpy landing after such a long flight.

However, director Robert Schwentke does a good job of rising above most of the screenplay's shortfalls and delivers a Hitchcockian caper that is well worth the price of admission even if you will hardly remember most of the plot points by the time you see it on the DVD shelves early next year.

www.gregsreviews.com

Panic Room but in the sky.

[iamsam103 · 6/10 · 15 January 2006]

First off, I loved "Panic Room" and Jodie Foster's performance in it. When I first saw the looks of this film, I was very intrigued and thought it was going to be a "The Forgotten 2"....i was very wrong.

What starts off is with Jodie Foster playing a mourning mother after the death of her husband. Her and her daughter catch a flight to go stay with Foster's grandparents, however, after Jodie's character falls asleep, the daughter is gone....and to make matters worst, she is told that she never existed...

Sounds like a good premise eh? Well that's what infused me to go and see it. It starts off well but once the daughter goes missing, it went downhill. Jodie's performance throughout is good, not Oscar worthy but it is one of the highlights of the film (as well as the ever-cool Sean Bean.) Unfortunately I can't go into great depth of anything else of the story because of spoilers, but I will say that the ending plot is horrible, totally impossible and so therefore ruins the impact of the film and its good beginning.

There are also a lot of other things that annoy me about the film, to cut a long list short here are some examples: - a brilliant, new state of the art plane...and there's hardly anyone on board.

• Foster's character, although confused and frustrated does get annoying after a bit, and seeing as w're meant to identify and sympathise with her, is not a good thing.

• The overall twist / ending plot is ridiculous, as I stated before.

My vote is 6/10....go see the film for the enjoyment of Jodie Foster and some thrills. however, do not expect a masterpiece..because this is FAR from great.

Carefully-plotted thriller is gripping and intriguing without being truly suspenseful...

[moonspinner55 · 7/10 · 4 November 2005]

Jodie Foster is terrific as usual playing recently-widowed aircraft engineer and mother of a solemn little girl who is faced with terror and dread while on a flight from Germany to New York: her daughter vanishes and no one on-board will admit to ever having seen her. Unintentionally or not, the film takes its cue from the cult classic "Bunny Lake is Missing", but then goes its own way for a compelling second-half. The script is carefully plotted, hedging no bets and leaving no stone unturned, and that may be its only fault: the plot is so smoothly planned and drawn out for us that it loses some intensity. Ironically, the opening (with Foster making burial arrangements in regards to her husband, and later feeling watched from her apartment window) are spookily dream-like, but the director becomes much more sober once the action moves to the plane, and yet his film could really use more of that surreal, what's-going-on ambiance he initially captured so succinctly. Still, a first-rate picture with excellent performances by everyone, down to the last two-line player. *** from ****

Plight Planning

[dunmore_ego · 7/10 · 21 November 2005]

BOARDING OUR FLIGHT: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen; our Flightplan for this journey involves aircraft designer Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster), whose life in Europe has been jarred to a halt by the accidental death of her husband (she swears he "fell", not jumped), prompting her to return to the United States with her six-year-old daughter, Julia (a somber Marlene Lawston in her first film role). Since this plane was designed in part by Kyle Pratt herself, we are telegraphing that she will soon be shimmying confidently through our crawlspaces and wreaking havoc with the avionics. For now, please observe the safety belt signs. We should be cruising at an altitude of suspense, coupled with paranoia.

TAXIING FOR TAKEOFF: The night before the U.S. trip, director Robert Schwentke purposefully blurs the line between Kyle's fantasies and reality, for both her and us; add cutaways of her last, oddly-mysterious moments viewing her husband's coffin before shipment onboard this flight to the U.S. - and something smells not quite kosher. Inflight movies will be "The Lady Vanishes" and "Murder On The Orient Express."

ENGINES GUN A POWERFUL TAKEOFF: In flight, Kyle and Julia stretch out to nap. Kyle wakes. Julia is missing. The premise is running on maximum thrust now. Please remain calm while the crazy lady belts about the cabin…

CRUISING AND BRUISING: Flying high on Foster's adrenalin alone. As Kyle's helplessness and desperation mount in her search for her missing daughter, subsidiary characters enter the chaos of her spiraling paranoia, all maintaining that they never saw Kyle's daughter to begin with – Air Marshall Carson (Peter Sarsgaard, with the deadest eyes you will see in cinema, until the next Romero zombie-romp), the grounded Sean Bean as the staid aircraft captain, skeptical stewardesses (Erika Christensen and Kate Beahan among them), along with the now-perfunctory airline trope of Mysterious Arabs, a bevy of disgruntled extras, and the aircraft itself in the role of Panic Room at 30,000 feet.

Systematically shooting down search options (with all the principals exuding gratifying "real-world" professionalism and demeanor), the world suddenly skews under Kyle's feet when a devastating "fact" surfaces that reveals she might, in fact, be delusional about her daughter. Please note the location of the emergency exits as the -

CAPTAIN HAS TURNED ON THE SEAT BELT SIGNS: Please return to your seat number PG-13, and ponder on a sad truth about movies aimed at wide demographics. Flightplan's particular scenario faces two options – Option One would be that Kyle is delusional (as we grimace in anticipation of a Patrick-Duffy shower-scene copout); Option Two is that her child really is missing (bearing in mind that Hollywood *hates* imperiling children, at least, not without severe retributive action against the perpetrators – which means that even if Julia *is* missing, she will be rescued, whilst cheating a Damoclean ticking clock). Once we are made aware of which option this movie chooses, it is simply a matter of following the generic breadcrumbs to their Hollywood cookie-cutter conclusion. When The Villain is revealed, the plot – instead of thickening – is diluted.

TURBULENCE: The Villain lapses into Bond-speak, explaining his Grand Plan. Oh, we didn't need that at all.

UNDERCARRAIGE IS DOWN BUT WE'RE COMING IN HARD: Movie's resolution is telegraphed via the Villain's meticulous plotting and placement of explosives, and via his accomplice, who is fraying at the edges.

OXYGEN MASKS DEPLOYED: The pat ending looms in our windshields, invariably escalating to colossal proportions, to sate that wide demographic spoken of earlier.

CRASH-LANDING - as the plot degenerates to B-Movie Villainy, replete with B-Movie Convention payoff: large explosion, uplifting music, and everything's gonna be allllright…

We've reached our destination, with stopovers in Hitchcock and Christie. Please ensure your seats are fully forward and that your tray tables are in the upright and locked positions before disembarking the aircraft.

Thank you for flying Hollywood Airlines.

(Movie Maniacs, visit: www.poffysmoviemania.com)

I have a cunning plan

[paulpensom · 1/10 · 19 May 2007]

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This must be close to the plot synopsis:

Man: "You know we're always saying we could use 50 million dollars?

Woman: "Yes"

Man: "Well I have a cunning plan."

Woman: "What's that then?"

Man: "First of all we need to find an aeronautics engineer working in a foreign country, with a child, and an encyclopedic knowledge of the layout of a particular long-haul plane."

Woman: "Why's that?"

Man: "Well then, you see, we murder her spouse, in such a way as it looks like an accident."

Woman: "What for?"

Man (exasperated): "Well then of course, we bribe the mortuary assistant at the hospital into letting us place explosives inside the casket."

Woman: "But why?"

Man: "I'm coming to that. Then we wait until the woman decides to return the the U.S."

Woman: "But what if she doesn't?"

Man: "She just will, okay? So anyway, when she decides to return home we find out what flight she's on. Hopefully she is not only placed on the type of plane of which she has encyclopedic knowledge, and flying with the airline of which you're a flight attendant, but also on the same flight as her dead husband's casket. Are you following?"

Woman: "I think so."

Man:"Good, we're nearly there. Then all we need to do is falsify the checking-in information to remove all record of her daughter, make sure she gets on the plane half an hour before everybody else, ensure there is a row of empty seats behind her and get me on the flight, sitting nearby."

Woman: "And then?"

Man (laughing): "Now this the cunning part. She takes the empty seats, allowing her daughter to sit in the aisle seat, then when she goes to sleep, all I have to do is steal a food trolley, stuff the daughter into it and hide her in the hold. Oh, and did I mention that we must ensure that nobody on the entire plane sees the daughter?"

Woman: "Isn't this getting a little far fetched?"

Man (angry): "What do'you mean? It's a great plan? All I have to do then is remove the child's boarding pass from wherever the mother is keeping it without waking her, assist her search for the missing child in the guise of an Air Marshal, convince the captain that the woman is mad and that the child died with her father (through a forged note from the mortician), and wait for the mother to escape from my custody.

Woman:"Escape, why?"

Man: "Because the casket can only be unlocked by her, so once she's unlocked it I can set the timer on the explosives. From there we're home and dry. I merely have to recapture her, convince the captain that she's actually not mad but a hijacker who wants 50 million dollars and give the Captain our account number, asking him to ensure the money is paid straight in. Oh, Then we land, everybody gets off the plane, I shoot the mother and blow up the daughter and nobody is any the wiser. We walk away with a cool 50 million. Simple eh?"

Never before have I wasted two hours of my life on quite such egregious nonsense.

Enjoyable Thriller

[Rainey-Dawn · 8/10 · 20 September 2018]

Kyle Pratt's (Foster) husband died. She is flying the body of her dead husband home and leaving with her daughter Julia. Sometime after take off Kyle and Julia go to a row of seats that no one is in so they can both stretch out and sleep better. When Kyle awakes her daughter is gone and after a while she begins to look like a mad woman looking for a 6 year old girl that no one has seen. Is Kyle crazy or has someone taken her daughter?

I enjoyed the film quite a lot. It's a good watch if you enjoy mystery-thrillers.

8/10.

Schwentke's folly...

[CosmoJones · 16 May 2006]

Flightplan is billed as a psychological thriller, and director Robert Schwentke almost succeeds in bringing us just this. Schwentke had all the major ingredients to create something that would be a cut above the standard fair that is increasingly force-fed to an already bloated public. Jodie Foster, plays the recently bereaved Kyle Pratt, who accompanied by her young daughter Julia, (Martine Lawston) is flying back to New York with the body of her husband. So far so good, you might say. Foster is a fine actress who does not disappoint in her portrayal as a woman who is forced to question her own sanity when the disappearance of her daughter is met with a collective, 'what daughter?' response from the passengers and crew.

This response to the missing child sets the stage for what Schwentke hopes will be a tense, claustrophobic, and frantic thriller, dramatically powered by the psychological meltdown of Foster's emotionally fraught Pratt. Unfortunately, this is not quite what the finished product turns out to be. Foster's performance is all that it should be (there are similarities with the role she played so well in The Panic Room), as is that of Peter Sarsgaard, who plays Air Marshall Carson. What happens then is a film that shows early promise - Schwentke initially establishes a grave, disturbed tone - descends into absurdity due to a plot which demands a level of credulousness that defies all reason.

The sheer stupidity of the plot - 'the holes are big enough to fly a jumbo jet through', according to one critic - not only undoes the hard work invested in the early part of the film, it ruins it completely. Peter Dowling's original script would have worked so much better. This involved the slightly more believable scenario of an aviation security agent being forced to participate in a straightforward hijack. Post 9/11, there remains a great deal of residual fear and paranoia surrounding air travel. Sadly, Schwentke has failed to exploit this in Flightplan. There is an attempt to address the issue of perceived Arab terrorism in the film but it seems clumsy and patronising.

There are a few nice touches in the film - the passengers' unease at take off is shown well - but overall, viewers are forced to question the feasibility of the events taking place. Too many questions arise, such as why does Jodie Foster sound as though she is strolling along a wooden stage, in high heels? This is a minor point however, the major one being - and this is central to the plot - how can a plane full of passengers (and crew) not notice a six year old child? Or to put this another way, is it possible for a six year old to remain unnoticed on a plane? I don't think so Schwentke, as much as I would love this to be the case.

Good atmospheric mystery falls apart with explanation

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 4 January 2014]

Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster) is an aviation engineer. Her husband dies in Berlin falling off a building. Then she's going back to New York with his casket and her daughter on a plane she helped designed. After falling asleep, she finds her daughter missing. The crew searches frantically, but eventually doubts arises, and she's seen as delusional.

There is a good element of Hitchcockian mystery, and psychological thriller. For the first half, the movie is building up to a great mystery. Director Robert Schwentke creates a moody atmosphere, but it all falls apart as the truth is revealed. It turns into an action movie, but the convoluted explanation is a wrench in the whole machinery.

Is this the most convoluted plot ever?

[lars.dahlager · 1/10 · 8 November 2005]

I think we have some sort of record. The steps needed for the criminals in this movie to succeed are:

1) Jodie deciding to go to the states on the same airplane as her dead husbands coffin. 2) An accomplice at the check-in who deletes any record of the daughters ticket. 3) that jodie chooses to be the first onboard - otherwise some of the other families with children might notice the child when she boards. 4) That the flight attendant doesn't notice the child when they board. 5) That the child stays hidden for three hours of flight. 6) That Jodie decides to sleep in the back of the plane with her child, so the kidnappers can whisk her away in the troll. Had Jodie and the child stayed in their seats, the kidnapping would have been impossible.

Improbable as this seems, the plot holes's just getting started. Now we need Jodie not just going amok, but escaping to do another feat: Remember how an airport security guy, at the beginning of the movie, tells Jodie she needs to lock the casket (with a code) for security reasons? (apparently, in this alternate reality, any coffin can get by airport security because 'coffins aren't x-rayed'). It seems the criminal actually needs to get hold of and move the explosives hidden in the coffin so he can blow up the child in the front of the plane (to cover the fact that she was onboard, i guess). So now the scheme of the criminals hinges on: 1) Jodie goes to the bathroom, crawls up a trap door, shortcircuits the lights, uses the confusion to get to the basement, opens the coffin, keeps the lid up and lets her self be caught.

I didn't understand this at first, thinking that the writers couldn't be that idiotic, but why else set up the idea of a digitally locked casket? She, it seems, has to open it! And when this setup is complete, the criminal only has to convince the captain that this crazy mother is a terrorist whos suddenly gotten hold of a detonator for a bomb.

I think the writing is, in many ways, intriguing. I fail to remember any movie with a plot quite so convoluted. Please respond if you can think of any.

Yours truly, Lars

Solid thriller

[gijoe-48397 · 7/10 · 12 May 2023]

The movie's story centers around Kyle Pratt played by Jodie Foster, though how you would know her name since it's never spoken aloud is beyond me. In the early parts, the plot wisely focuses on setups for future payoffs... or red herrings. Kyle is a bit of an unreliable narrator within this story, which should keep even astute viewers engaged and guessing until it all comes together. I won't spoil the plot here as it ruins the whole point of the movie, but to keep a short summary, it's fairly tight for the most part and it's only major plot hole can be played out differently without mental gymnastics. The tense atmosphere itself sold me so much, I generally found myself too invested to nitpick anyway.

Acting is solid across the board. While I am not a Jodie Foster fan, I will acknowledge the skill she has in this role and how she clearly gives it her all. Once again, going too far into reviewing the characters defeats the reason to see the movie, but rest assured everyone puts in a good performance.

Pacing is excellent with all the setup and character development that's crammed in at just over ninety minutes. While it could be perceived as 'dragging' in the middle as it sometimes seems the protagonist isn't making progress, I wouldn't call any shot wasted film.

Camera work is worth noting here as it is tight and claustrophobic within the plane, but it's interesting how many far shots are pulled off in such a confined setting. I also like how the structural environment is used to transition scenes.

The music is very appropriate and minimal, though don't expect to be humming one of the tunes like you would the theme of "Back to the Future" either. The sounds design itself is very intense with its delivery, likely to make viewers jump out of their skin.

Rating the rewatch value of this film is a difficult task. After the initial watch, it is worth rewatching soon after to pick up all the missed clues that a viewer will now have context to. It is also a movie better watched with others than alone, even if one viewer has seen it already. That being said, it's not a movie I'd reach for with regularity.

The final synopsis to me is that Flightplan is a tense thriller worth at least one viewing for people who want a scare without a gore fest. It's pacing is perfect, the story is interesting, and the characters well developed. Dare I say, it may even be smart writing. I fully recommend this one, flaws notwithstanding.

Very Entertaining!!

[leemyers-60171 · 7/10 · 6 April 2020]

Not going to leave a long review, will simply say I usually hate every thing but this was quite good.....I actually enjoyed it.

Now stop here, don't read any spoilers, just watch the film ✌🏻

"You just scared the ____ out of four hundred passengers...!"

[classicsoncall · 7/10 · 25 October 2010]

Almost uniformly, when I read the viewer comments for a film on IMDb, I'll click on the 'Hated It' comments to see what the nay-sayers were saying. This is the first time I had to select the 'Loved It' tab just to get some balance. Wow - A lot of haters out there!

OK, maybe not the most believable plot, but there's still enough tension and suspense to go around. As a parent you never put yourself in Kyle Pratt's (Jodie Foster) shoes? I don't see it as too much of a stretch to go ballistic over the loss of your child, and demand an on the spot investigation when it could be their life at stake. Granted, the elaborate set-up for this flick was a bit over the top, but let's give the writers some credit for going that next step beyond your typical hijacking. There were a lot of clever tricks needed to move the story forward, and I think they worked for the most part. If I had to pick my own reason for knocking the plot, it would be Pratt's inability to convince the Captain to search the hold areas. Maybe a calmer passenger might have done it, but probably not me.

So come on, cut the picture some slack. This is the kind of escapist entertainment you look for every now and then. Why I'll bet this is just the ticket for a coast to coast in flight movie.

Panic Fuselage

[awjonesjr · 7/10 · 19 September 2005]

A grieving widow (Jodie Foster) is escorting her daughter and the coffin holding her husband's body back from Germany to the U.S. While mid-flight, the child disappears... or did she ever exist in the first place? There are really only two places for the story to go -- Jodie's crazy or she's the victim of a Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy -- and it doesn't take a seasoned film critic to figure out which direction this one is headed. But while FLIGHTPLAN offers just a few mild surprises, it does so with a fair degree of tension and passion on Foster's part (she's settled into the role of hysterical mother a little too comfortably). The cast features several fine actors who you could say are slumming or more agreeably characterize as giving their all to a serviceable mainstream thriller. This is neither great nor terrible; rather, it is what Hollywood does best: A solid if unspectacular entertainment, a date movie smart enough to eschew pretenses to anything more.

Didn't know what to expect all the way thrihh

[thechopsreview · 8/10 · 5 February 2022]

This has been on my Prime list for ages, but was put off by the low-ish reviews; that was a mistake. On a wet Saturday afternoon I've just watched it and what an intriguing film it is. Honestly didn't quite know what was going to happen until the final few minutes. There may be plot holes noticed by some film buffs (I didn't notice any), but if you're not that one of those I would defo recommend taking time out to watch it - you won't be disappointed.

Panic Room Clone

[katyggls · 6/10 · 26 November 2005]

I was looking forward to this movie because I love Jodie Foster. Basic premise: Jodie Foster plays a grieving widow named Kyle Pratt who is taking her daughter and her husband's body back to the United States via a state of the art passenger jet that was designed by none other than Ms. Pratt herself. Then her daughter goes missing, and the crew have no record of the child having ever been on board. She begins a frantic search for her daughter, hampered by the suspicions of the captain (played by character actor Sean Bean), crew, passengers, and Air Marshal Gene Carson (Peter Sarsgaard), who all think she is lying. The fun ensues, and she must fight for the lives of her daughter and herself.

Hmm. A woman and her daughter, stuck in a inescapable area, fighting for their lives. Anyone seen Panic Room? I admit I was disappointed in how similar the two movies are both in situation and in tone. The film has a few other problems as well. There are some massive plot holes here as well as some clunky sentiment at the end of the film. When the last scene played out I asked myself, "What, did they just go to heaven?". Watch the film and you'll see what I mean.

It wasn't all bad. Jodie Foster is still a great actress, and she doesn't pull any of her punches, in a thespian sense or literally. If you want to see a woman empowering movie, this is it. And there's enough interest generated by the plot to keep you awake until the end. If I did the stars thing, I'd probably give it 3 and 3/4 stars out of five.

How sad.

[random_guy2 · 3/10 · 27 September 2005]

Rarely have I been so annoyed by a film. Perhaps this is because "Flightplan" starts off with such promise before descending (ha ha) into a laughably ridiculous, clichéd, and downright boring final third. The movie develops as a fascinating and emotionally gripping story of a delusional woman who is convinced her dead daughter accompanied her on board as has been kidnapped.

**SPOILERS** ... but surprise! She is, in fact, correct! Coincidentally, none of the 500 passengers saw the girl or witnessed her kidnapping. Coincidentally, the air marshal and a flight attendant are in cahoots to orchestrate a hijacking threat, demand a $50 million ransom, and attempt to pin the entire thing (including the on-board ransom demand) on a woman who has no idea what is going on. Right.

What surprises me is how far off base Roger Ebert's review was of this film. He writes, "Often in thrillers we think of obvious questions that the characters should be asking, but do not, because then the problems would be solved and the movie would be over." That's right, and "Flightplan" is a textbook example. Jodie Foster's character figures out the entire conspiracy, gains control of the situation, is able to take the hijacker's gun ... and then gives the gun to the captain, has him leave the plane, and seals all the exits so as to be alone with her (surprise!) still-armed foe. Sure, this allows for yet another limping-attacker-slowly-chasing-resourceful-woman climax, but the repeated blatant assaults on the audience's common sense and credulity are simply too much to take.

"Flightplan" seemed promising as it slowly established the impossibility of the actual explanation it provides. There is the possibility of a good movie in there, but as it stands, "Flightplan" is an enormous cheat.

Good movie

[umarmortuza · 10/10 · 14 January 2021]

I really loved this movie. Got my attention through out the whole film

Interesting Story, but gutted with dead characters

[thespeos · 7/10 · 30 June 2022]

A tepid and modern version of the brilliant Hitchcock film "The Lady Vanishes" (1938). It's OK, but just that.

Hint: There's a sneaky common bond the two (2) films share. Look to the window ... : )

Here's my breakdown:

STORY: If you haven't seen the film referenced in my opening comment then maybe this won't feel so familiar. Still, I was able to watch this objectively (or so I believe ...), and can say that the story is unique but has massive holes (yeah, like air moving through the turbine engines). I won't give away the story here, but here are my general complaints:

1. The characters lacked ... um, character. It's as if the writers sucked the lifeblood out of the actors, and made them into cardboard organisms that behave like humans, but aren't. There is (essentially) zero character depth.

2. The story seems to hold up very nicely for awhile, and then pitches in a descent like a glass falling off the counter.

3. Some key elements of the whole story are bereft of explanation, and any given are cheap like an afterthought.

4. Cliche. Cliche. Cliches ... please, exercise and study to breathe life into your creativity!

ACTING: Yes, Foster is sufficient in the role, but that's it. This was not her fit. The rest of the cast were flat, but maybe that's because the story offers no opportunity for anyone to express him/her self. Dunno.

ENTERTAINMENT: Moderate value, but that's if this is your beverage

TEMPO: Slow and choppy (yeah, like low altitude turbulence, which isn't too bad)

CINEMATOGRAPHY: It's the inside of a plane, so ... don't expect much

DIRECTING / WRITING: Director: Schwentke's portfolio is not my style, but I don't think it's his European influence. I think he's (probably) a product of his generation of directing hacks, and was trying to give a shallow audience their shallow dose of modern, shallow perception of life ... which is shallow and lacks depth of character. (Yes, that's called a rant.)

Writers: Even worse, the writers have the same tripe rippled through their work, and no, "The Hunger Games" (2012) is not an example of good film (story? Perhaps). Maybe it's a generational thing, but I'd like to find some modern writers that inject some nutrients into their work without sex and explosions.

Is it a good film? It's OK

Should you watch this once? Yes, I suppose

Rating: 7.3.

No Plan to the Story

[villard · 1/10 · 12 February 2006]

This movie soars with riveting drama and intrigue for the first 60 minutes, and then abruptly goes into a tailspin and crashes and burns on the screen. I can't remember a more convoluted plot in movie. I still can't figure out the bad guy's strategy.

The plot is completely illogical, contrived, and simply defies common logic. The vast majority of movies like this cleverly tie all the threads together in the final surprise climax.

This film does just the opposite; the story line unravels and become hopelessly knotted and twisted. The viewer is left simply saying "huh"? What's a shame is that excellent acting, cinematography, set design and editing is wasted on such an inane story that can only make a shred of sense in the egos of the writers and director.

Among the more annoying contrivances:

1.Nobody enters an airplane alone, literally minutes ahead of the other passengers. Even so, as pointed out by so many reviews, a young child would not go unnoticed by other passengers.

2.It's ridiculous to portray flight attendants as surly as a pretext for them not noticing the girl. Also, I really doubt any flight attendant can mess around with the airline company's computers which must track millions of reservations.

3. The air marshal comes off as creepy and untrustworthy the minute you see his beady little eyes. There's no surprise here that he turns out to be the bad guy. It's equally obvious that the onboard Arabs cannot be the bad guys.

4.Though the flight cabin set design is smart, if not overly opulent, the acreage used in the storage an avionics area is totally ridiculous. It's as stupid as making the interior of a submarine look a spacious as an enclosed shopping mall. Also, patch panels with phono jack connectors went out in the 1960s. I realize artistic license is needed, but this is just silly for a computerized state-of-art airplane.

In summary, this is probably the strangest, most unsatisfying, and poorly conceived film I've seen in a long time

Silly but solid Friday night fare

[Rickting · 6/10 · 22 May 2015]

Flightplan follows a plane engineer (Jodie Foster) as her daughter goes missing on a flight. No-on remembers the daughter ever being on-board and things get so mysterious you will find yourself watching the whole film even if you hate because you just need to know what happened to the daughter. This kind of film is difficult to pull off, as setting a thriller in a claustrophobic setting with not all that many hiding places and no escape roots like a plane will usually go into ludicrous territory. Just look at Non-Stop. Thankfully, this just about manages to entertain its audience and if you don't focus on what's going on too much, you should have a decent time. Jodie Foster gives an excellent performance as the protagonist, and the other actors are on point as well. Flightplan boasts good direction, and the cinematography creates plenty of tension but it also visually appealing. A good visual style and good performances, as well as a mystery you will be trying hard to solve at the centre keep the film afloat.

However, the film reminds me of a point made in Christopher Nolan's The Prestige. Do we really want to know the secret? Towards the end, finding out the mystery deflates the tension and the film remains entertaining but heads into generic territory. The film, on a whole, is implausible and relies suspends disbelief a little too far, but the actual resolution to the mystery is just a bit ordinary and doesn't quite live up to the build up. The cabin crew are too unsympathetic about the missing child, as are the passengers, with Sean Bean's captain being pretty much the only likable secondary character. The film takes itself a bit too seriously and this removes the fun from the film a bit. With the silly plot and lack of likable characters the film fails to lift itself above average, although it is quite frightening at times. Overall, this is a decent enough thriller with good performances and visuals. I love action and thriller movies so I could enjoy this easily but if you don't like these genres you may not get on so well with this.

6/10

Worth watching

[robdavis-66391 · 7/10 · 20 May 2020]

Despite the several highly unlikely parts of the plot, enjoy the thriller and ignore the holes in the storyline. No-one could miss the child being brought aboard, no-one could alter the passenger manifesto and the sky marshal was never once asked for his credentials, the aircraft captain didn't even know he was on board! But Jodie Foster and Sean Penn are the backbone of the performance, enjoy them.