RED EYE

REVIEWED BY CHARITY BISHOP & CARISSA HORTON

Our rating: 4 out of 5

Because of: brief language, violence, thematic elements

Rated:

Have you ever been on an airplane? After this, you might think twice about a late night flight. Red Eye is the most intense thriller of the summer, a movie you won't want to see alone!

Little does Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams), a successful hotel manager, know when she boards the Red Eye back to Miami after her grandmother's funeral that it will turn into a ride of terror. She meets a charming man in the boarding line by the name of Jackson Rippner (Cillian Murphy), who offers to buy her a drink while they wait for their delayed flight. The two share mild conversation and drinks, then part ways. Believing she will never see him again, Lisa is astonished to find him as her seat companion. Rippner seems genuinely interested in her life, curious about her family, and strangely attentive to her emotions. But when Lisa asks him what he does for work, Rippner makes a startling confession... he professes to be a private assassin, and she is part of his diabolical plans.

Holding her father hostage in exchange for her cooperation concerning a certain politician's demise, Rippner drops his kindly facade and reveals his true character. The plane is caught in the middle of inner and outward turbulence as fellow seat mates are pitted against one another in a psychological battle for superiority. Lisa is carrying emotional baggage, and Rippner enjoys twisting the knife deeper. Her attempts to betray him place her and fellow passengers in peril, but once the plane hits the ground, the stakes will get even higher...

Knowing Wes Craven best for his gory horror films, I wasn't certain what to expect from Red Eye, but was pleasantly surprised. It's an extremely tense, well-crafted thriller that follows in the grand style of Hitchcock in subtlety. I like movies that scare you into an adrenaline rush, and this one delivers. From the first five second to the final credits, it's a wild ride that satisfies on many levels. The acting is superb, relying on the intensity created between the two leads, who have a fantastic chemistry. Lisa is not completely the bullied heroine, but rises to the occasion, and Rippner is great as a predatory assassin who takes pleasure in his work. The closest resemblance his character comes is to Roat in Wait Until Dark; the similarities are remarkable. Cillian was born to play the bad guy.

There aren't a lot of content concerns that don't deal with psychological torments, but the film does contain scenes of intense violence in the second half. Rippner head-butts Lisa to keep her quiet, then attacks her in the plane bathroom, slamming her against the mirrors and strangling her. Bad guys are stuck in the throat with sharp objects, hit by cars, shot, stabbed, and bludgeoned, with mildly gory results. A missile takes out a hotel flat, endangering many lives but with no causalities. Rippner never intimates any kind of overt sexual violence toward his captive, but a sadistic, subtle attraction runs throughout their violent scenes. Mild innuendo intimates that flight attendants believe a romantic tryst is going on in the plane bathroom. Lisa alludes to being raped in a parking lot a few years previous. She falls down a flight of stairs in a skirt. Language consists of a half dozen uses of s**t, one f-word, and several mild obscenities and profanities.

Red Eye deals with issues on an internal level and manages to be terrifying without being overly blunt about it. Lisa is forced to face her fears, and learn that she can fight back and actually survive and conquer. You'll even find the occasional glimpse of humanity in Rippner's character, though they are few and far between. It's a struggle against every psychological fear you could possess as a woman, and Lisa emerges triumphant. Intense and thought-provoking, it's a surprisingly clean thriller that proves Craven's worth as a director who pays attention to detail. The little girl alone on the airplane. The eccentric old lady several seats back. The two punks just off the street. The intensity builds to a dramatic climax. So buy your ticket and hop on the Red Eye.

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