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Directed by: Robert Schwentke Starring: Jodie Foster, Peter Sarsgaard, Sean Bean I hate to say this, as I was quite eagerly awaiting Flightplan, but it really committed suicide. It took a concept and set it up pretty solidly, had a nice and credible cast, and then decided to throw in the silliest twist in recent memory. It's almost as if they digitized the actors because I can't believe Foster or anyone else would have said yes to the last 1/3rd of the movie. The good, however, is very good. Jodie Foster nails a frantic but methodical mother in the desperate search for her missing daughter. She does some irrational stuff, but never sounds either completely robotic and lucid or blubbering, but rather something I could really buy. She also sells her emotional condition. Her kid was also nicely somber and didn't feel too unnatural. The airline crew was all capable, although in particular Peter Sarsgaard gives a nice sympathetic face to her concerns. The script has a nice flow to it, logically moving forward as she gets more worried, then more methodical in what she feels has to happen. When she decides to take it to the next level, I thought it was a bit sloppy in set up, but it was all going quite well. The set design was pretty nice as well, with a good feel for the areas above, below, and inbetween. Everything was pretty solid, with a twist that most guessed by watching the previews. And then it all comes crashing down. The film takes a nosedive in terms of intelligence, credibility, and even acting. I have such a hard time thinking that the script was finished when they started, because someone would have had to call bullshit. The whole plan is so failure prone it's amazing. The only way for it to work is for the flight attendant/flight marshal to drug and drag a kid from the upper section all the way to the forward avionics bay. Of course, that kid had to get on board before anyone else (which was Kyle's prerogative), and past the boarding gate personnel (who was not in on the job), and hope that the kids up front never noticed that there was a kid there until Kyle goes to sleep. They need the pilot, not in on the plot, to agree to search everything including the hold when all evidence suggests this woman is off her rocker. They have to somehow get the one and only flight attendant to be assigned to check the avionics bay because anyone else not playing grabass is going to find the kid. Finally, after all is said and done, they need to hope they can get the passengers and crew off the plane without any of them getting near to Kyle because she's so obviously obssessed with finding her girl that she could never be confused with a hijacker. Oh, and the explosives had to get on board without being subjected to a bomb scan and the amount they got did little more than rearrange the furniture in the avionics bay, which Kyle somehow knew and got behind a metal door which completely protected her. What the gently caress were they thinking? RATING: 2 PROS: First 2/3rds are pretty solid, Jodie is a great actor CONS: Last 1/3rd is absolutely terrible ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0408790/
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Sep 24, 2005 05:20
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I saw this movie yesterday, and it was probably the worst movie I have seen this year. I recommend reading this spoiler, and only wasting two minutes of your life rather than an hour-and-a-half and your hard-earned money. The basic premise is beyond retarded. It ends up being a get-rich-quick-scheme between the onboard air-marshall and a flight attendant. They orchestrate the most elaborate heist ever imagined, which included murder a week before the flight in order to hide some explosives and a trigger mechanism within the coffin (how they knew the coffin would end up on that particular flight is beyond me), which they would then use to demand $50 million or something. However, in order to get into the coffin on the plane, they kidnap Jodie Foster's kid (Jodie Foster being the wife of the murdered guy), then try to convince her that the child was dead the entire time and made up having her onboard in the first place, which eventually drives her to search the cargo hold and open the coffin. So, thus far, the scheme involves murdering someone, hiding explosives in his coffin, making sure the coffin ends up on the proper flight, kidnapping a child ON AN AIRPLANE with not a single person noticing the child even existed in the first place, stealing the child's boarding pass from the sleeping mother, magically changing the flight roster so that the child is no longer on it in order to convince the mother that she is crazy, which in turn causes her to go crazy and search the plane top to bottom (except avionics, where the child is being hidden), including the coffin, which allows the schemers access to the explosives. BUT, what the kidnappers hadn't planned on was Jodie Foster being super-familiar with the airplane. She was, after all, a PROPULSION ENGINEER, who worked on the loving engines and had no reason whatsoever to know anything about the interior layout of the plane. She was able to find access to wherever she needed (except the mystical avionics section with her kid). In the end, she figures it all out, saves the kid, and kills the bad guy while the flight attendant chick runs away. So, in summary, this whole movie could have been avoided if the scheme involved sneaking in the explosives in a suitcase or something and hoping security wouldn't catch them. The probability of that working out would have been orders of magnitude greater than the probability of their little plan working out properly. EDIT: Oh yes, I forgot one particulary retarded part. There is a point at which Jodie Foster is locked in the cockpit, and she has the trigger to the explosives with her. Instead of using the radios to call to the thousands of cops and FBI and whatnot right outside (the plane was on the ground at this point), she devises a plan to throw the kidnapper offtrack, and she then runs away from the safe cockpit and puts herself and her kid in mortal danger. Also, this sequence illustrates that apparently one can bypass the bulletproof door leading to the cockpit by crawling through the duct above the bathrooms directly to the cockpit, no key needed. Rating: 1
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Sep 24, 2005 22:29
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I got roped into seeing this movie and left just over 1/2 way through it. If my penis was glued to the movie theatre seat I would have gladly severed it to avoid watching any more. This premise was so far beyond believable I don't even know if there is an analogy to explain it. Rated 0.5
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Sep 28, 2005 14:07
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I didn't find it as bad as everyone else seemed to, but I didn't come in with any expectations. I came expecting Jodie Foster to act angry and anxious and Peter Sarsgaard to be creepy-hot. And I got it. The plot is of course absolutely ridiculous, but if you're not the type to worry about things like this then you can enjoy it simply for the fast pace and nice sets. And also for Peter Sarsgaard being creepy-hot.
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Oct 2, 2005 06:23
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I thought it was an alright movie. Without Jodie Foster, who is an excellent actress, it would have completely fell apart. But, she is really the shining point of the movie. Like the original poster said, the first 2/3 of the movie was good and really had me gripped for the movie. But, once the terrorism bomb is dropped, I couldn't care less. It had a cool beginning idea that could have worked (Jodie Foster never actually took the kid on board as she died a week before, in what could be a pretty cool 'big reveal' scene and would have made the movie more memorable), but instead it is made beyond retarded. 4/5 for the first 2/3, 1/5 for the last third. 2.5 overall.
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Oct 2, 2005 21:00
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If this topic had been near the top of TFD yesterday, I'd have kept my $7... What an epic waste of time for everyone involved. There wasn't a single frame of this film that was devoid of some sort of pretension. Before the opening titles ended, I knew: the director is a nobody and the script's been hacked to death. What a piece of poo poo this movie is. 1.5, but would be a 0.5 if not for Foster and Sarsgaard. JBM... fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Oct 4, 2005 |
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Oct 4, 2005 20:56
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I usually never give movies that bad of a rating, but this movie was a real piece of poo poo. Contact has been my favorite movie for a long time, thus making Jodie Foster one of my favorite actors. But she absolutely sucked in this movie. She does the same protective, pyscho mom bullshit she's been doing in every movie lately. Everyone above me has done a good synopsis, so there is no point. All I have to say is that the bad guy can devise such an elaborate evil plan, but it basically falls to poo poo because he keeps letting Jodie Foster jump up and loving gazelle down the aisles of the plane. With all the planning, couldn't he have planned for some tranquilizers to shut her up and keep her seated near the end? As vegaji said, this would've been a better movie if it ended at midpoint When it seemed like the kid was actually dead and Jodie Foster was actually crazy .5/5
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Nov 11, 2005 04:30
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I'm also usually not a very critical movie viewer but I don't really get why most people here see some redeeming value in the first 2/3rds of this movie. It was obvious from the very beginning that this was either going to end with it all being in Foster's mind or it being a ridiculously elaborate, shocking conspiracy. This movie really missed other options because it just felt like filler until the director deemed the time right to tell us which of the two aforementioned options the big plot twist was going to be. And then it just gets even lamer. 1.5
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Jan 29, 2006 00:46
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I saw this with no expectations and all I knew about it was from what I saw in commercials and I thought it was pretty good. The plot is kind of dumb in the end but it was suspenseful and exciting for the most part! 3/5
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Jan 30, 2006 04:20
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What would have made this movie cool is if it was a science fiction film and the kid disappears because of some crazy science fiction thing happening. But nope its not that. It is just a horribly lovely movie.
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Feb 2, 2006 01:18
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maybe someone could explain this to me, I really dont want to have to rent it, but I am curious...questions from the spoilers given above Why did the terrorists need Jodie Foster to open the coffin? If they knew where it was, why didnt they just go get it? How does this make them any money?
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Feb 2, 2006 01:29
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I was of the opinion that the film should have ended when the handcuffs went on. and Skarsgaard went to convince the captain the "one last time" He should have walked up to Sin Bin and said "yeah she's a fuckin loon. Poker game tonight?" Roll Credits. that would have worked for me. Instead I got a film that made me pity the idiocy of everyone involved in the movie.
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Feb 4, 2006 14:38
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Niles Standish posted:
They made it very clear in the movie that they wanted Jodie Foster's character to know the plane. That's the entire reason they chose her. I was rooting for the retarded badguys the whole time despite how ridiculous their plan was. Pros: Sean Bean is cool. Cons: The Plot. 2/5
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Feb 15, 2006 03:21
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This movie hurt my brain. The plot is one the stupidest ones I've ever seen and a 4 year old could poke holes through it. Nonetheless the acting is pretty good with what they've got to work with. With a story this bad, you would expect the actors to just mail it in but nobody does frantic like Jodie Foster and the rest of the cast is solid in their roles. Oh and that evil chick from Swimfan is loving hot. 2/5
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Feb 22, 2006 19:00
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I think I'd pretty much have to agree with most of the responses above. One thing I didn't understand were the guys watching Julia through her window. Were they actually just there so they could have a "see guys arabs aren't bad k lets be friends" moment, or is it possible there was some deleted scenes/alternate ending that had them involved somehow?
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Feb 28, 2006 19:40
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/\/\/\ yeah, I was thinking the same thing. If they weren't involved somehow, I find it unbelievably coincidental that they happened to be in that window earlier.  I thought the movie sucked as well because of the incredibly stupid plot, but everything else was pretty solid. 1.5 pretty bad clammy fucked around with this message at 07:03 on Mar 3, 2006 |
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Mar 3, 2006 06:53
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