FLIGHTPLAN (DVD)

Director: Robert Schwentke (no major film work)
Starring: Jodie Foster, Peter Sarsgaard, Sean Bean

Jodie, Petie, and ... Sean-ie - 3 actors I dig immensely. This is high quality acting stock, folks, Jodie with a long famous career behind her, and the other two with significant careers ahead of them I think. Flightplan shows what good actors can do with relatively mundane Hollywood fare.

At first glance this story is absurd. A preposterous thriller that would never work - an eye-rollingly over the top story. You know, just like any of the other hundred films of its ilk that come out of the major studios these days.

But here's the thing, there is a very good reason why Hollywood churns these things out. Every once in a while one comes along that's mightily entertaining. I don't know if I'd call Flightplan "mightily" entertaining, but I did find it entertaining. Part of that might be attributable to a slighter better than average script, but I think the real reason had to do with those three actors I mentioned before. They helped make some of the ridiculous situations seem plausible.

Jodie Foster plays a mom who's husband has just died in an accident. While transporting his body back to America on the new Airbus jumbo jet, she awakes from a nap to find her daughter missing. She was sitting next to her an hour before, but now she's gone, and in the very limited space of an airliner (even one as huge as the new jet). From there tension and twists ensue as we debate whether Jodie was crazy, or if in fact there is a giant Hollywood plot crashing down upon us.

Jodie's real success in this role comes from her ability to never quite convince us one way or another during this debate. I've seen a lot of movies, and I absolutely, positively, one hundred percent knew that there was a crime caper at the end of this plot. Nonetheless Foster still made me believe that she might just be crazy in the early scenes. Quite a good job for this fairly standard flick.

After it's all done you'll say there's no way this plot could have occurred. You're absolutely right. It's utterly implausable, logically absurd. It's still kind of fun along the way, though. A fairly enjoyable movie as these things go.

Standouts: Jodie Foster, Peter Sarsgaard and Sean Bean lift up your run of the mill Hollywood thriller.
Blowouts: A ridiculously implausable plot.

Grade: B