Red Eye (2005) Sorry we missed posting yesterday, due to a vicious attack by a 24 hour flu virus that pummeled us mercilessly for a day and night......
In the midst of our ongoing misery we chose what we thought would be the easiest kind of film to endure while battling overwhelming fatigue, a killer sore throat and a tummy gone sour.....(and no, it wasn't you-know-what, since we're triple-vaxxed....)
At a super-swift 80 minutes (we're subtracting 5 minutes for the ultra slow end credit crawl, 'Red Eye' proved perfect viewing for when you're falling in and out of Nyquil-induced bouts of dozing......we barely had to pay any real attention to it and yet we didn't miss a thing.
The film's a rare excursion into high-concept suspense for horror impresario Wes Craven.....although he does get to turn the last third of it into a plucky-babe-versus-maniac duel that's as unnerving and violent as anything in his "Scream" trilogy.
Plucky Babe here is Rachel McAdams, as a harried hotel manager flying back work in Miami. But tough luck for her, the meet-cute charmer (Cillian Murphy) who chatted her up at the airport and who's now her seatmate is a ruthless terrorist mercenary. And he's orchestrated a simple, diabolical plot to make her an unwilling facilitator in blowing up a Homeland Security Director and his entire family while they're staying at her hotel.
While in flight, if McAdams doesn't call the hotel and have the Homeland guy's reservation changed to the room targeted for a missile launch, her dad (Brian Cox) will die at the hands of minion that Murphy's already stationed outside his house. What's a plucky babe to do?
Actually, way more than we'd imagined, considering that McAdams and Murphy are jammed together in coach seats on the plane. Though challenged by the confined setting, Craven and his screenwriter Carl Ellsworth come up with enough inventive stuff to dial up the suspense and even throw in bursts of violence.
(We didn't even mind the low-comedy joke of naming Murphy villain 'Jack Rippner').
High concept thrillers must always make good on their promises and the final section of the film, when the plane lands, duly lurches into a pre-ordanined, breathless action-packed hunt and chase scenario. And then, to nobody's surprise, moves on to Wes Craven territory.......with Murphy, his false mask of civility ripped off to reveal himself as a gasping, maniacal fiend, goes after McAdams with a big knife.
As sick as we were while viewing this, we could detect one humorous oddity ......the slightly built, clear blue-eyed Murphy may excel at the seductive patter, but he still looks like a good swift wind could blow him over. But then maybe that's why, in the frenzied, final mano a mano he engages with McAdams, they appear more than evenly matched.
High concept thrillers don't much traffic in believability, but we couldn't have cared less, especially yesterday, one of the sickest of sick days we've ever experienced. Though we watched 'Red Eye' with red blurry eyes, it did a nice job of making a terrible time go faster......3 stars (***).
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