Movie: Red Eye

This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.

Code Red

Plot Overview

Miami retiree Joe Reisert (Brian Cox) sets his (mono­grammed) wallet down on his desk next to his daughter's graduation picture & one of her playing hockey. Education is important. It enabled Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams) by her upper twenties to succeed as a Lux Atlantic Hotel manager. School sports also demonstrated her team spirit, and she is in fact “a people pleaser, 24–7.” One of their VIP guests set to arrive is Deputy Secretary of Home­land Security Charles Keefe (Jack Scalia) and his party. He's on a seven day tour of Southern port cities and has put terrorists on notice that the U.S. means business.

Communication is a two-way street. Terrorists have hired a high-priced mercenary unit to assassinate said secretary and his family in order to send “a big brash message.” They are managed by cruel criminal master­mind Jackson Rippner (Cillian Murphy) who plans ahead like a serious chess player. He has his associate lift Joe's wallet so they can prove they have control over him—the credit cards in it are discarded. They smuggle in some heavy artillery to be launched from the water. They go over the floor plans of the hotel. They shadow Joe's daughter whom they will induce to change the deputy's room to one facing the ocean. By mentioning the graduation picture, they prove they have access to her threatened father. The associate failed to tell Jackson about the hockey picture. He didn't figure it was important.

At the last minute security moves forward the target's arrival time, and Lisa her­self is called away to her grand­mother Henrietta's—“Always look forward” was her motto—funeral in Dallas. She's to take the red-eye back. It's cutting it close, but Jack­son improvises on the fly finagling a seat next to her on the plane. There he will seal the deal. She can't make a scene as that would jeopardize her dad, her seat mate playing the innocent while she looks distraught from family tragedy, and a little inebriated as well. He has her over a barrel. It's a two part deal: First, she phones the hotel to change Keefe's room. Then after they've landed, they wait in Starbucks for confirmation that Keefe's been taken care of, and then Jack­son walks away. Once out of sight he calls off his dog and Lisa's dad is safe and she can get on with her life. Lisa makes her phone call. The glass is half empty or half full depending on how one views it.

If you've ever flown, you realize that things can get a little crazy come deboarding time. To borrow a thought from American novelist T.C. Boyle: “the literature on closed-group psychology flags this almost over the hump period as one of the most dangerous in the way of the glass-half-full-or-half-empty syndrome. [When] you reach the half­way mark you butt your head up against the wall of inexorable fact that you're only fifty percent of the way home, with a whole long turtle-creep … to go, and this, typically, is when crew relations begin to break down, factions forming, people with­drawing, feuds boiling over” (266). And as Dr. Phil puts it in a self-help book the passengers are passing around, “Fearing to act is human; failing to act is just plain dumb.”

Any hockey player worth her salt is aggressive to the point of brutality; able to run, weave, duck, dodge, and block; to deliver a stunning blow and get back in the action once knocked down. She's not above impugning her opponent's masculinity & proficiency, or calling him names to rile him. Once the plane has touched down, and the wheels have stopped rolling, and the seat belt light turns off, the mise-en-scène changes from a chess board to a hockey pitch, and the sweet people-pleaser can show her mettle.

Ideology

For edification from the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus, we read, (Sirach 9:13) “Keep thee far from the man that hath power to kill; so shalt thou not doubt the fear of death: and if thou come unto him, make no fault, lest he take away thy life presently: remember that thou goest in the midst of snares, and that thou walkest upon the battlements of the city.” This Jackson is just the kind of dangerous hombre one wants to avoid. Lacking that option he's some­one to get away from post haste. Don't “doubt the fear of death,” that is to think this isn't happening; it is. It's no good trying to wheedle one's way out of it; that will only provoke him. The world is full of snares, and it behooves one to be aware of his or her surroundings at all times, remembering “that thou goest in the midst of snares, and that thou walkest upon the battlements of the city.”

Production Values

“” (2005) was directed by Wes Craven whose usual genre is horror. It was written by Carl Ells­worth and Dan Foos. It stars Rachel McAdams, Cillian Murphy and Brian Cox. The director opted to use talent of limited face recognition to make it seem more realistic. McAdams gave a credible performance as a modern day heroine, while Murphy pulled off a cold & calculating but charming villain. These two worked harmoniously together, especially in their early scenes. The supporting actors were nothing to write home about, but they did manage their respective small parts okay. The retired dad was played by a retiring actor, but he got in on the action at the end just when we thought he was about to croak. His sport is golf. He made his putt. The targeted official was teaching his boy to throw a mock foot­ball, but his family ended up playing a running game on the ground.

MPAA rated it PG–13 for some intense sequences of violence, and language. Music by Marco Beltrami was not excessively maudlin or jarring. The cinema­tog­raphy was by Robert D. Yeoman, the production design by Bruce Miller. The main set used a mock-up air­plane with removable panels to allow the camera liberty of placement. The editing was tight and the film a mere 1½ hours long. It had its share of twists with­out being overly cute.

Review Conclusion w/ Christian Recommendation

I loved it! It kept me completely engaged the whole way through. It didn't rely on gimmicks, just a good story played by competent talent. The leads were beautiful people easy to watch. There was some underlying humor in it as well, too subtle to make us laugh, but enough so we don't take the whole thing too seriously. For instance, there's the sequence where Jack­son is ghosting through Lisa's father's home, holding a combat knife Rambo-style for a down­ward stab once he finds her. In the back­gound there are multiple trophies on the shelves of a hockey player holding her stick at the ready, but he's as oblivious as the Dallas drivers who provoked the cabbie's comment, “WHO TAUGHT YOU TO DRIVE, STEVIE WONDER?” When he does find her, the meanie is swinging a badass hockey stick right at him, and the moment he needs to switch the knife to a thrusting grip costs him dearly. Ha, ha. I think it's a winner. It would be a good one to watch with your significant other who thinks you're too much into sports.

Movie Ratings

Action factor: Edge of your seat action sequences. Suitability for Children: Suitable for children 13+ years with guidance. Special effects: Well done special effects. Video Occasion: Fit For a Friday Evening. Suspense: Don't watch this movie alone. Overall movie rating: Five stars out of five.

Works Cited

Apocryphal scripture taken from The Septuagint with Apocrypha: Greek and English. U.S.A.: Hendrick­son Pub. Originally published by Samuel Bagster & Sons, Ltd., London, 1851. Print, WEB.

Boyle, T.C. The Terranauts. New York: Harper­Collins Pub., First edition. Copyright © 2016 by T. Coraghessan Boyle. Print.