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Red Eye (2005)

DVD Cover (Paramount)
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Overall Rating 59%
Overall Rating
Ranked #1,355
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A woman is kidnapped by a stranger on a routine flight. Threatened by the potential murder of her father, she is pulled into a plot to assist her captor in a political assassination. --IMDb
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Review by Chad
Added: January 15, 2006
Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams) is a hotel manager who has to travel to Miami due to a death in her family. Upon arriving at the airport, she finds out that her flight has been rerouted and that she'll have to wait a bit before boarding her new plane. While waiting, she meets a man who introduces himself as Jackson Rippner (Cillian Murphy) and the two commence chit-chatting over a couple of drinks in the airport bar. There seems to be a bit of romantic tension between the two, but all of that is broken up when boarding time rolls around and the two part ways. Lisa boards the plane and makes her way to her seat and finds out that she's going to be sitting right next to this Jackson fellow that she just met. A stroke of luck, she thinks... until she finds out that him sitting beside her was no coincidence and that he has plans for her. These plans just so happen to involve Lisa helping Jackson set up the assassination of the head of Homeland Security. Of course, Lisa opts out of these plans, until she finds out that Jackson has a man planted outside of her fathers house... and if she doesn't cooperate, her daddy is going to find himself on the wrong end of a nine-inch knife. With Jackson sitting right beside her and not taking his eyes off of her, Lisa must find a way to both avoid helping out in these assassination plans and warn her father of the danger that lurks just outside his house.

After seeing a few of Wes Craven's offerings over the last couple of years, I wasn't expecting much from his recent foray into the thriller genre. However, I was shocked to find out that this was a pretty solid movie. It does have a few faults which I will cover later in the review, but as a whole, the movie worked out nicely. The storyline is by far the biggest strength of the movie, although I did find it a bit hard to get behind Lisa's character. Perhaps it's just me, but I kept envisioning myself in her position... and my reaction would have been something along the lines of "Say no more, hand me the phone, what do you want me to say?" Now, that may just be the outlook of yours truly and the female of the house (who was rooting for the same thing), but I also found it hard to get behind the character thanks to the constant stupidity that she emanated. Sure, characters in these types of movies have to do a few stupid things to drive the plot along, but the things that this woman did had me praying that Jackson would be the one doing the eventual throat-stabbing.

Sure, I wasn't a big fan of the Lisa character (although she did have her moments), but I will say that the actress playing her did a damned good job. Rachel McAdams was very believable in the role, and had these scripting problems been tweaked a bit prior to shooting, she and her character would have both received my full praises. Good acting behind a bad character still doesn't make for a very enjoyable experience, and sadly, that's how it turned out with her. Cillian Murphy gets the better deal here, as I found his character to be handled to perfection. The man is cold-blooded and ruthless, and both the script and the man playing the part pulls this portrayal off with ease. There's also a few other characters who show up for small roles, but these two characters were basically the only two involved in the grand majority of the scenes. Thankfully, they had great on-screen chemistry and both were quite talented in the acting department.

The final thing I'd like to point out about this film was the way that the mood was built. The general storyline is intriguing, but I can see how it would easily be screwed up in the hands of the wrong director. Craven does a wonderful job at setting up the scenes in such a way that you feel that something could happen at any moment, especially in the last act of the film. I won't spoil the details about this act, but suffice it to say, I found that it worked out very nicely and it was a great closer to the film. The only real complaint that I have about the mood-setting and tension-raising is, once again, the stupid things that Lisa does to set things into motion. She did make up for it with a few of her actions, but there were a couple of scenes where I honestly believed the character to be a small step above the mentally-challenged level of intelligence.

Overall, however, I found this to be an enjoyable thriller marred by only a few mistakes. The ending is predictable and there's no real surprises to be found once the storyline is set up, but nonetheless, I was entertained by the eighty-five minutes that was Red Eye. 7/10.
Edd #1: Edd - added January 16, 2006 at 4:48am
I loved this movie. Murphy plays a great "killer".
bluemeanie #2: bluemeanie - added January 16, 2006 at 3:40pm
Wes Craven really needed to redeem himself after the garbage that was "Cursed", and he managed to do so with "Red Eye", a genre he rarely takes on anymore...the thriller. This did not seem like a traditional Wes Craven, and that was a good thing. I loved when Craven directed "Music of the Heart" a few years ago because it was totally against what he was normally directing at the time. This was not a perfect thriller, but Cillian Murphy was entertaining and the action was handled pretty well. 6.5/10.
Rest Easy Soul #3: Rest Easy Soul - added January 24, 2010 at 8:11pm
Let me go on the record saying I love Murphy and his "smug" personality in roles he plays. This performance doesn't fall short in any way and while I will say it's not the best suspense movie ever made, it's still a great one. Short and sweet.
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