Film Review - Flightplan

A Mother’s Plight
By: Rianne Hill Soriano

Jodie Foster (Kyle Pratt) turns in another decent performance as she goes aboard Flightplan. With her acting talent, looks ‘like she did it all alone’ for the film as how entirely commanding a screen presence she could really be – which makes the film effective enough, acting-wise. But some scenes don’t work fair enough though the film is quite blessed with a good lead actress. It seems like it’s only Foster who makes the film come into safe landing amidst loopholes in the plot, too good to be true and improbable plot twists and quite illogical storyline. In short, she is the captain of the film to keep things going, and in some way, save it from being the usual crappy Hollywood film it could have been.

The story is about a grieving wife’s hidden agony and a desperate mother’s struggle to find her missing daughter amidst a trans-Atlantic trip from Berlin to New York. She frantically searches the state-of-the-art jumbo jet (which she helped design) and finds herself at odds amongst the passengers and flight crew.

There are only few clues left behind. And there are various theories presented on what could really be going on. Is Kyle a disturbed woman? Is her daughter really dead and the one with her aboard the plane is just a physical manifestation of some people may call a ghost? Could it be some form of alien abduction? Or is there a conspiracy behind all these? From the sudden mysterious death of her husband to the disappearance of her daughter, there have been moments of good thrill and suspense. However, I got the gist of what really is going on from the character and acting of the annoying air marshall. And that quite disappointed me as the film fails to keep the truth and suspense away from me so early on.

The veteran actress plays an extremely physical part as Kyle, maintaining intensity like a pro while moving around the huge plane and defending herself from everyone in sight. As the frenzied Kyle continues to demand the plane to be searched in every possible way, the flight crew and the passengers get more and more agitated. At some point, she tends to contest her own sanity and challenges the boundaries of her will and mind in her desperate search. But she graces the airplane set as a pro actress, as a pro aircraft engineer and as a desperate mother trying to take control of what her instincts say – all by herself.

The film exploits the terror and mystery of an in-flight melodrama. From a thriller treatment during the first half of the movie, the story suddenly changes direction, slipping into action mode. There are some good suspense sequences that make the film a thriller roaring down the runway (thanks the credible acting skills of Foster). But most of the outlandish moments that make the story move on with an invincible role the protagonist plays fail to situate a clearly good take-off towards the climax. Without Foster, the film might be crashing down like a hijacked airplane.