Film Review: Flightplan (2005) F

Date Viewed: 6/1/06
Venue: DVD

If there can be a movie called Snakes On A Plane then I’m certain this Jodie Foster vehicle should’ve been dubbed Crazy Lady On A Plane, because that’s Flightplan in a nutshell. Or maybe it should be called Crazy Lady On A Plane Full Of Laughably Unbelievable Plotholes (That You Could Fly A Plane Through). Yeah, I think that works a lot better.

Jodie Foster plays a propulsion engineer who’s just lost her husband to a horrible accident and is bringing his body back home to the States. Accompanying her is her very frightened six-year-old daughter. A few hours into the flight, Foster awakens from a nap to discover the daughter missing and no one on board having even the slightest memory or record of the girl ever being on board.

The rest of the film is mostly spent with Foster (who is strangely beginning to look more and more like Michael Jackson…or maybe it’s the other way around?) desperately running around the plane searching for her daughter or desperately trying to convince the crew that’s she’s not crazy. Peter Skaargsard, who I swear must be related to John Malkovich, is also around as the world’s most forgiving air marshal.

Problemic story points arise as soon as the girl goes missing. Um,, why is Jodie allowed to run around the cabin unchecked? Um, why is the crew letting her talk back to them? Um, why didn’t the air marshal incapacitate her when she bangs on the cockpit door? Oh, it’s because her daughter’s missing. Oh, then it’s okay to endanger the passengers, no sweat, my bad.

Things get worse as the plot thickens. I won’t give anything away, but there’s some seriously sloppy, made-for-cable-esque storytelling at work. The whole thing winds up being so far-fetched I actually wonder if anyone read the script before setting out to make this turd.

Jodie gives a decent, if one-note, performance. Skaarsgard, much like the film, is wholly unbelievable. The little girl, who really doesn’t have much to do, is annoying. And Sean Bean and Erika Christiansen are here to collect paychecks.

This isn’t quite a so-bad-it’s-good movie, but I admit, I sometimes get a certain sadistic thrill watching a bad film. It’s a nice little reminder that crap is crap and I haven’t gotten soft.