Flightplan DVD
From the very beginning of Flightplan, we know we're supposed to be paying attention to everything to be able to figure out the puzzle so as not to feel duped by the movie. It's in the very nature of going to see a thriller. You want to be smarter than everyone else in the theater so when you walk out you can say "I knew it was going to be so-and-so because...." Even the opening shot of Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster) sitting in a Berlin train station appears suspect. The sound echoes too much, it's too desolate... it's enough to make a viewer paranoid. And it does.
Working on his first big-budget Hollywood film with a screenplay by Billy Ray (Godsend), director Robert Schwentke meticulously orchestrates a taught thriller. The running time is a lean 98 minutes, the performances are tensely controlled, and the script is so well paced, the entire film may as well have been conceived in the Volkswagen factory (and let it be said that I'm a big fan of VW's). Also, props to a very spare but emotioally complementary score by James Horner.
Foster (The Silence Of The Lambs) heads a first rate cast that include Sean Bean (Lord of the Rings) and Peter Sarsgaard (Shattered Glass). Each of these actors have complete control over their dialogue and achieve the goal of inhabiting their characters, and once ensconced in the film they do the trick of slyly making us forget, that we forgot they were actors (think about it... it works).
According to Schwentke on the "Making Of.. " documentary, the story of Kyle Pratt is "...a story of a character who has to rebuild her psyche after a traumatic experience." To Foster's credit, she imbues her Kyle with a latent protective ferocity that lies underneath all the layers of her life that are falling apart around her. It's painful to watch as all those layers are peeled away, as one by one her belief in what she knew to be true is broken down violently... but we believe it all. Foster is a master of letting us see inside her head without having to use words, and when she reaches that inner layer, devoid of doubt and driven by her previously mentioned protective ferocity, the audience knows it, and we're absolutely on her side, crazy or not.
Of course this brings us to the supporting cast. Sean Bean does a fantastic job with the little screen time he has, and may be one of the few people that can really "share" screen time with a heavyweight like Foster. I'd love to see these two in another project that would utilize this dual energy. Their strengths aren't at odds, but complement one another. For his part, Peter Sarsgaard (put very succinctly by one of the commentators on the DVD's Making Of... extra), is a master of the "slow boil". His underplaying of Carson is ultimately what makes him so believable, and terrifying.
For all their efforts however, it's the emotionally fragile woman who shows them all up. Like Sigourney Weaver's Ripley in Alien, Foster's character was originally written for a man, but I'll be damned if this film doesn't work better because the lead is a woman (or maybe it's just that these two comparable actors are as believably strong as any Ford or Schwarzenegger).
Some critics have taken this film to task for its technical believability and story, but I have to strongly disagree. If someone can't see this streamlined, well-paced and well-acted thriller for what it is, then I dare them to do it better.