Red Eye (2005)
DIRECTOR: Wes Craven
CAST: Rachel McAdams, Cillian Murphy, Brian Cox, Jayma Mays, Jack Scalia
REVIEW:
Red Eye belongs to that specific subgenre of thriller that takes place (mostly) in one confined setting, and also to that of the “Fridge Movie”, where the filmmakers try to keep the level of tension and engagement high enough to distract from plot holes and the underlying flimsiness of the screenplay. Alfred Hitchcock is perhaps the most iconic filmmaker to color within these lines, and widely-regarded as the most masterful at it; Hitchcock was not above working with scripts riddled with plot holes, but overcame them at least in the moment through sheer directorial prowess. Wes Craven’s Red Eye does a serviceable, if not superlative job at this; running a breezy hour and twenty-five minutes, it’s a brisk, economical battle of wits and wills between two characters, but while there are times when the tension is sufficient to distract us, there’s other times when the seams in the storytelling are too evident. Nonetheless, for those who aren’t too critical, it’s nothing particularly ambitious or original, but a tense little thriller that serves its purpose as a breezy diversion.
Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams), who works for an upscale hotel, is returning from her grandmother’s funeral and catching the “red eye”, an overnight flight, to get back home to see her father (Brian Cox). At the airport she runs into a friendly fellow passenger with the unlikely name of Jackson Rippner (Cillian Murphy). The name should set off red flags, but they chat and form some chemistry, and then lo and behold find themselves sitting together on the flight. It’s there, safely confined next to Jackson, that Lisa finds they did not meet by chance; he’s part of an international conspiracy to assassinate Homeland Security Director Charles Keefe (Jack Scalia), who’s visiting Lisa’s hotel. Jackson needs Lisa’s help, and he’s got an associate waiting outside her father’s house to ensure her cooperation. If Lisa does not make a crucial phone call to seal Keefe’s fate, her father will be killed.
Red Eye starts out innocuously and almost seems as if it’s trying to lull us into thinking it’s an airport-based rom com, but the fact that it’s directed by Wes Craven should tip us off that this is a ruse. Once the wannabe Hitchcockian premise has been established, things turn into a battle of wits and wills between Lisa and Jackson, as Lisa somehow tries to signal for help while under Jackson’s nose (including through such methods as writing a cry for help in lipstick on the restroom mirror). Alas, while maintaining a serviceable level of suspense and tension, and moving at a brisk enough pace through its short runtime that it doesn’t overstay its welcome, the setting inherently limits the directions in which the story can go. Stuck next to each other on a crowded airplane, neither Lisa nor Jackson can do anything overt or conspicuous, which dilutes some of the tension. This has the unfortunate effect of giving us time to roll our eyes at some of the patented cliches in Carl Ellsworth’s script, like the convenient times at which a low-battery cell phone will and won’t work. Like the Johnny Depp thriller Nick of Time (in which Christopher Walken’s villain made a simple assassination absurdly overly complicated), the villainous plot is far more convoluted than it needs to be, and what Jackson needs from Lisa is so simple that surely there were ways for this international conspiracy to have proceeded without blackmailing a hotel employee mid-flight. Then there’s logically dubious actions on the villain’s part, like when he punishes Lisa for an attempt at subterfuge by knocking her unconscious, despite having a limited window of time in which he needs her to make the crucial phone call. And the climax, when we finally get off the plane, descends into a familiar “heroine vs. knife-wielding killer” scenario made unintentionally a little silly by a wheezing, raspy-voiced Cillian Murphy still running around after an impromptu tracheotomy.
On the plus side, the scenes on the plane are about as plausible and convincing as they can be, and up until the somewhat over-the-top climax, the movie is nicely restrained and subdued. Lisa and Jackson’s dynamic has a little more nuance than just “heroine menaced by villain”. Jackson—at least until the climax—is not a teeth-gnashing villain; he’s a smooth operator who sees both himself and Lisa as just professionals doing their jobs, and regards Lisa with a certain sympathy, though at the same time he’s got his job to do and does not intend on letting her thwart him. There’s a couple character moments that have nothing directly to do with the blackmail plot, such as when she confides a traumatic past incident, to which Jackson reacts with seemingly sincere sympathy (in fact, it’s this moment of letting his guard down that gives Lisa the opportunity she’s been waiting for).
This is almost—not quite, but almost—a two-person show, and Rachel McAdams and Cillian Murphy play effectively off each other. McAdams, on the rise with material as varied as the bitchy “villain” in Mean Girls, and love interests in both the melodrama The Notebook and the comedy The Wedding Crashers, now gets to add “Wes Craven thriller” to her filmography, and plays Lisa as a would-be victim with enough brain and backbone to fight back. As movie villains go, Cillian Murphy is a fresher face than someone like Christopher Walken or Michael Wincott. He had his breakout role in 28 Days Later where he actually wasn’t a villain, but between this and his role earlier this year in Batman Begins—where he played a psychiatrist who liked putting a burlap bag over his head and terrorizing people with hallucinogenic gas—he’s clearly en route to getting typecast as a creep. He makes a good one, with his offbeat mix of delicate features, sensuous lips, and icy blue eyes, and remains more restrained than we might expect, blending smooth charm with an undertone of steely menace, like the moment the other shoe drops on the flight and all the warmth goes out of his eyes and softly, smoothly, he explains, “as fate would have it, my business is all about you”. Apart from McAdams and Murphy, the only other actor with significant screentime is familiar character actor Brian Cox (playing against type by not being a villain), who has the thankless role of the imperiled Dad and spends most of his handful of scenes watching TV or talking on the phone. Basically the only other two characters in the movie are the doe-eyed Jayma Mays as Lisa’s friend the hotel receptionist, and Jack Scalia in a walk-on role as the intended target.
As B-movies go, Red Eye is a serviceable little distraction, although it’s not entirely unable to distract from its own plot holes. There’s enough suspense and thrills to sustain itself as an adequate distraction for its breezy runtime, even if it doesn’t linger strongly in the memory once it’s over.
* * 1/2