FLIGHTPLAN
Released: September 23, 2005
Some critics have dubbed "Flightplan" as "Panic Room" in an airplane. Both films do star Jodie Foster, yes, and the plot in somewhat similar in concept - Foster plays a mother protecting her daughter from bad guys. In "Flightplan", Foster's husband dies in an unusual way, which is never really explained or justified for the main plot, and Foster must then fly his body, in a jet that she helped design, back home. In mid-flight, Foster's daughter disappears. She freaks out, of course, but when she complains to the airline crew she is told that her daughter was never aboard the plane according to their records. Foster begins freaking out even worse, starting to self-doubt her own sanity. What happens next can be viewed as a riveting thriller or a descent into stock bad guy trying to "get" Foster. There are many unanswered threads of plot but in the end plot details are forgotten as quickly as the move abruptly ends. Foster is great, as usual. The support cast of Peter Sarsgaard, Sean Bean and Erika Christensen are also very good but this is not truly memorable stuff.
120 Minutes
Touchstone/Buena Vista