RED EYE is an especially effective and efficient thriller by Wes Craven, the director of the SCREAM series. Although it follows a well-hewn formula, the film is one that you'll like at the time, and you'll still respect yourself the next morning, since, on later reflection, it's actually smarter than it seems while you're watching it.
Well cast, this basically two-person drama stars Rachel McAdams (WEDDING CRASHERS), as Lisa Reisert, a super resourceful hotel manager ("a people pleaser 24/7") who meets her match in Jackson Rippner. Cillian Murphy, the evil doctor in BATMAN BEGINS, is quite frightening as Jackson. Jackson is Lisa's seatmate in a flight from hell that in reality is the very stormy skies between Dallas and Miami. Unless she makes one call on the plane's seat phones, her dad (Brian Cox) will die. As you can guess, this one call, if she makes it, will result in the death of many.
>From the very beginning, Craven is great at setting up the tension. Before Lisa has any hints that Jackson is anything other than the sweet, innocent guy he seems, Craven has already got us on the edge of our seats. Every natural bump of the plane portents hidden danger. If you have any fear of flying -- or of creepy stalkers -- beware, because this story will prey on you like a vulture on a dead mouse.
And, although the movie works best as a standard scary story, it does have just enough funny moments to loosen us up a bit. When a really bitchy couple demands the moon of Lisa's second in command and her assistant loses it by referring to them as "assholes," Lisa lectures her, "There are no guests who are assholes, just guests with special needs." You may not have any "special need" to see this movie, but you'll have plenty of adrenaline-pumping fun if you do.
RED EYE runs a fast 1:25 -- and that includes all the credits. It is rated PG-13 for "some intense sequences of violence, and language" and would be acceptable for teenagers.
By : Steve Rhodes (http://www.internetreviews.com/)
Source: rec.art.movies.reviews newsgroup
Rating: 2
QUOTE: "This is what we call summer entertainment, and who would have thought that a mid-August barnburner would emerge as one of the best films of the summer?"
Director Wes Craven has had quite a year. Back in February his Cursed, one of the goofiest werewolf films ever made, opened to bad reviews and publicity regarding the disaster-laden production. It tanked at the box office and is currently residing on DVD shelves at a store near you. Now we have Red Eye, a true about-face for Craven. The man who virtually created a genre (the tongue-in-cheek self-deprecating horror film) is now tackling Hitchcockian suspense, and does so with conviction, but also with some signature Craven licks.
In Dallas for the funeral of her grandmother, Lisa Reisart (McAdams) is catching the red eye flight back to Miami to make it to work the next day. She's a true people pleaser, and she has to be in her profession. She is a manager at the Lux Atlantic Hotel, and their next vacancy is about to be filled by the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security (Scalia).
After arriving at the airport early and quickly discovering that her flight is delayed because of weather, Lisa innocently meets Jackson Rippner (Murphy), a kind man who is clearly immediately attracted to her. To kill time they talk life over a few drinks at the airport bar, and upon finally boarding the plane, they end up sitting next to each other.
This is for good reason. Jackson is in fact a hit man of sorts (he doesn't do the killing, but he can talk a good game), and he needs Lisa to phone her hotel and change the room that the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security is scheduled to occupy, making it easier to execute the hit he and his henchmen have been hired to do. If she does not, her father (Cox) will be killed.
Screenwriter Carl Ellsworth, in his first big screen venture (he has several TV series writing credits to his name), keeps things innovative and brisk. He places Lisa in the very precarious situation of being 35,000 feet in the air and seemingly having no choice but to cooperate with Rippner's demands, but always has a few tricks up his sleeve. The bulk of the film, which takes place onboard the plane, shows a near-mastery of apprehension just by dialogue, let alone action. He uses turbulence as a Richter scale for Jackson's increasingly mounting temper with her inability to cooperate. This is solid writing, through and through.
Rachel McAdams and Cillian Murphy are two big-time up-and-coming actors. McAdams, fresh off the continuing success of Wedding Crashers, has the uncanny ability to shed tears and get distressed without overacting or eliciting unintentional laughter. She always manages to portray characters that we all know and can relate to, and I highly doubt there will be a woman in the audience who can't relate to Lisa. Murphy, coming off the success of Batman Begins, plays a smooth-talking, cold-blooded villain with the best of them. He is not an intrusive presence and actually seems like the kind of guy you'd start a conversation with if you had to waste some time. Craven makes continuous use of his iridescent blue eyes, as if they encompass his entire existence. I think they get bluer as his times grow grimmer.
The film is not without flaws, particularly in its final fifteen minutes when it goes all crazy on us. It does, however, give Craven the chance to throw in some seriously dry humor and his impeccable skill for getting audience members to yell "no, don't look there!" at the screen. By then I was thoroughly under the film's spell and I'm willing to give it a pass on that alone. This is what we call summer entertainment, and who would have thought that a mid-August barnburner would emerge as one of the best films of the summer?
By : Bill Clark (http://www.fromthebalcony.com/reviews/2005/05_redeye.htm)
