‘Flightplan’ OK, nothing to write home about

loading...

In theaters

FLIGHTPLAN, directed by Robert Schwentke, written by Peter A. Dowling and Billy Ray, 93 minutes, rated PG-13.

In the slick, easy new thriller, “Flightplan,” 6-year-old Julia Pratt (Marlene Lawston) goes missing at 37,000 feet on a trans-Atlantic flight from Berlin to New York.

Was it the hasenpfeffer and the currywurst that did her in? Unfortunately for Julia, things look more insidious than that.

For her mother, Kyle (Jodie Foster), a propulsion engineer with bleached features and a set mouth, the problem facing her is a sketchy flight crew that has no record of Julia boarding the plane and no eyewitness to prove that she even exists.

Instead, all they have is Kyle’s word, which is becoming increasingly shaky as Kyle’s fears escalate into the sort of rage that suggests instability.

Worse for Kyle is that the crew learns she recently lost her husband to suicide – he tossed himself off a rooftop and now is in a casket in the belly of the plane.

In the sidelong glances that follow that bombshell, it’s clear that everyone here believes they’re dealing with a woman whose grief might have got the best of her.

This becomes especially true when another revelation comes from the authorities, who are called upon when Kyle starts racing up and down the aisles, accusing the Arab passengers of kidnap and murder, and demanding that “every inch” of the plane be searched for her daughter.

What that revelation is won’t be revealed here, but it helps to spin the web that creates the noose through which Kyle finds her neck.

To the crew and to the U.S. marshal (Peter Sarsgaard) charged to watch her, there’s every indication that recent events have left Kyle unhinged, which will do her no favors in her efforts to get her daughter back. After all, for reasons she can’t understand, she knows that somebody here is lying to her.

Directed by Robert Schwentke from a script by Peter A. Dowling and Billy Ray, “Flightplan” is well-acted, well-assembled product for the masses. It’s nothing to get excited about, nothing to vilify. It has its moments, it has its problems.

The main problem is timing. The movie pales in the wake of Wes Craven’s lean, focused “Red Eye,” which was taut and kinetic in ways that “Flightplan” isn’t.

The other problem is that there is a rather large elephant in the room here, which we’ll call redundancy. The movie comes too close to “Panic Room,” a superior thriller that also featured Foster as a single mother trying to protect her daughter, and it borrows too liberally from Hitchcock’s “The Lady Vanishes,” in which a woman goes missing from a train.

If it weren’t for Foster’s ferocious performance in “Flightplan,” there’s every indication that audiences might have found themselves on a caboose.

Grade: B-

On video and DVD

THE INTERPRETER, directed by Sydney Pollack, written by Charles Randolph, Scott Frank and Steven Zaillian, 123 minutes, rated PG-13.

Tense and satisfying, with Nicole Kidman in a pinch as Silvia Broome, an interpreter for the United Nations who overhears an alleged plot to kill Edmond Zuwanie (Earl Cameron), president of Matobo, the African nation in which Broome was born.

Since Matobo doesn’t exist in real life – and since the movie was directed by Sydney Pollack, whose films sometimes have a political bent that echoes real life – you naturally look around to see what might have influenced it.

You don’t have to look far.

Pollack makes it clear that Matobo is meant to be Zimbabwe and that Zuwanie is modeled after that country’s president, Robert Mugabe, who fought to win independence from Britain in 1980 and thus became, to many Africans, a great liberator.

Twenty-five years later, Mugabe has become a tyrant, rigging polls, starving his people and using coercion to retain his grip on power. His methods have worked. In spite of ruining his country’s economy, he won this year a controversial landslide bid for re-election.

In a way, Mugabe’s story is the backbone for “The Interpreter,” which uses similar events and characters to build its own story, with flashes of Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest” helping to round out the corners; this is the first film ever to be shot inside the United Nations.

It follows Kidman’s Silvia in the difficult days that follow her hearing about the alleged assassination, which is set to take place at the U.N. when Zuwanie arrives later that week to deliver a speech to the General Assembly.

Though she tells the authorities the day after she hears, nobody believes her, particularly Sean Penn’s Tobin Keller, a Secret Service agent who recently lost his wife and whose gut says that Silvia is lying. Along with his partner, Woods (Catherine Keener), Keller starts to investigate Silvia (which allows Pollack his second nod to Hitchcock in scenes that recall “Rear Window”) Keller and company set up shop in the building across from Silvia. There, through large windows, they watch her every move with binoculars.

Without giving too much away, what Keller learns from his investigation is that Silvia has a secret past and ties to Matobo that go deeper than she let on.

Only occasionally does the script let the film down, particularly at the end, which is so forced and awkward, it’s a donkey stuck at the end of an otherwise attractive cart. Still, the ending is a quibble.

“The Interpreter” wedges itself into a turbulent corner of the world and finds there a story worth telling.

Grade: B+

Visit WeekinRewind.com, the new archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays in Discovering, Fridays in Happening, and Weekends in Television. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.

THE VIDEO-DVD CORNER

Renting a video or a DVD? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores. Those in bold print are new to video stores this week.

Alexander – C

The Amityville Horror – C-

A Very Long Engagement – A

The Aviator – A

Bad Education – A

Beauty Shop – C-

Bride & Prejudice – B

The Brown Bunny – C

Constantine – C-

Crash – D

Cursed – C-

Cypher – C+

Darkness – D+

Desperate Housewives: First Season – B+

A Dirty Shame – B

Ella Enchanted – B

Empire Falls – C-

Fever Pitch – A-

Flight Of The Phoenix – C-

Guess Who – C+

Hammer Horror Series – A

Hide and Seek – C

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – B-

Hostage – C-

House of D – D

House of Flying Daggers – A

Inside Deep Throat – B+

Ice Princess – B-

The Interpreter – B+

Kung Fu Hustle – A

Ladder 49 – B

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou – D+

The Longest Yard – C

A Lot Like Love – D

Million Dollar Baby – A

Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous – C+

Monster-in-Law – B-

Muppet Show: Season One – A

The Notebook – B+

Ocean’s Twelve – C-

Racing Stripes – C

Ray – A

The Ring Two – C-

Robots – C-

Sahara – C-

Scary Movie 3.5 – B

The Sea Inside – A-

Sin City – A-

Upside of Anger – B

Vintage Mickey – B+

The Wedding Date – B