Movie review: Flightplan

It seems ever since Jodie Foster became a mom, she plays moms. That's fine, moms are ok. However, Foster as a mom doesn't make for a very spectacular movie. Anna and the King was allright but not special in any way and Panic Room was a massive disappointment, considering it was directed by David Fincher. Last year gave us Flightplan, and I'm sorry to say it's not too good either. I'm a big Foster fan, but after skipping this one on its cinema run, I shouldn't have bothered with it on DVD.


Flightplan has a rather unbelievable premise: An emotionally shattered woman (her husband has just committed suicide) flies home with her daughter who gets abducted in flight. It seems pretty hard to kidnap someone in a rather cramped and overpopulated alumuminum tube. Even better, no one on the plane has seen the kid and according to the paperwork, she doesn't even exist! Of course, she does, and Flightplan actually does a pretty good job of building tension and showing Foster being progressively more distraught over her loss. Unfortunately, after about an hour, the film manages to deflate itself in less than a minute. The plot turns from unbelievable to ludicrous and the final 30 minutes are a bore. As for plot holes, there's about a zillion of them.

There's some good acting from Jodie Foster and Peter Sarsgaard, a horrible cameo-like appearance from Greta Scacchi (who used to be hot, but hasn't aged nearly as well as Foster) and a wooden performance from Sean Bean, who acts like he's still got an arrow from LotR stuck in his chest. There's also some politically correct scenes with Arabs, who, it turns out, are not all terrorists. Yay!

The Doctor's verdict: ** out of *****