Lisa (Rachel McAdams) is a hotel manager returning home from her grandmother’s funeral in Texas. Jack (Cillian Murphy) is a man of questionable character who sits next to her on a red eye flight to Miami. The fact that they sit next to each other is not exactly a coincidence.
Red Eye is the latest film from Wes Craven, who’s probably better known for horror movies like A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream. This time out, the director tries a psychological thriller. Craven doesn’t do a bad job with what he has to work with here. The direction is fine. It’s the script that lets Red Eye down. After establishing a pretty interesting plot device — which I won’t reveal — the film stumbles near the finish line and winds-up just being an average suspense romp rather than a gripping film.
All involved do their best to make the movie a winner, especially Cillian Murphy, who makes a very convincing sleazeball. Rachel McAdams, who has had a quick rise from relative obscurity to starring in two hit movies this summer (Wedding Crashers is the other), is also in top form. Brian Cox, who seems to have been in every movie released since 2002, is pretty much wasted as Lisa’s father. He spends most of the movie talking on the phone or sleeping in his living room chair.
If it weren’t for the clichéd third act, Red Eye would be a welcome respite from this summer’s movies with either no potential or those that didn’t live up to the potential they do have. Sadly, it is one of the latter. First-time screenwriter Carl Ellsworth said that he expected someone to come in and rewrite some of his script, which is the norm in Hollywood these days, but no one did. This is one of those rare cases where a few tweaks from a “professional” might have been a good thing.
3.0 out of 5.0 stars
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