Image courtesy of www.impawards.com
Director :
Wes Craven
Cast :
Rachel McAdams ……….Lisa Reisert
Cillian Murphy……….Jackson Rippner
Brian Cox……….Joe Reisert
Wes Craven has given us a lot of genre-busting movies in his 30-plus year career. From his earliest work like The Last House on the Left and through a long distinguished career, Craven has engineered some of the staples of modern film-making. Best known for one of the larger grossing franchises in horror Nightmare on Elm Street, Craven has engineered techniques that have been copied, emulated and spoofed over the years. He even poked fun at himself while crafting a trilogy of great horror films in the Scream franchise. Now Craven has crafted another thriller in Red Eye.
It starts out almost as a romantic comedy of sorts. Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams) is trying to get home when her plane is delayed. Stuck on the same flight is Jackson Rippner (Cillian Murphy), and during the delay they meet for drinks. There is almost a hint of romance in the air, as Jackson is charming and engaging. And both wind up on the red eye flight home, coincidentally enough in the same aisle. But the romance in the air quickly turns south; Rippner is not there to seduce her, he has other motivations. He has Lisa’s father Joe (Brian Cox) held hostage and needs her help as part of a larger conspiracy to do evil. From there it’s a game of cat and mouse, as Lisa tries to cooperate with Jackson while avoiding any semblance of actually helping him. Seated next to him for the duration of an airplane flight, Lisa’s objective of saving her father and thwarting Jackson’s plan becomes increasingly more difficult. With a fast pace and slick direction, Red Eye‘s faults are obscured by Craven’s impeccable sense of timing.
Craven is able to keep the story on track by it along so fast that the plot’s inconsistencies and head-shaking moments don’t come to light. There are no points to reflect on what has happened, as Craven keeps the movie moving so quickly that any slow points are smoothed over quickly.
When the movie goes from being on an airplane to being on level Earth it goes from being a nifty thriller to a generic action movie, complete with all sorts of cliché car chases and camera angles. The movie doesn’t lose its pace or its timing, it just loses the mystery and intrigue the first two acts provide and exchanges it for chase scenes from the action movie handbook.
And drawn from that handbook is the hero, who isn’t developed strongly enough. Lisa is a nice person and likable enough, but there isn’t enough about her to get behind. This is a shame, really, because in any other circumstance Rachel McAdams is a delight to watch. Lisa is a receptionist at a hotel with apparent manager type powers and responsibility, and yet she’s not developed in any sense. She’s nice to look at and pleasant enough, but there’s only one real reason to cheer for her. And that’s her co-star as Cillian Murphy is such a great villain that rooting against him and for her becomes easy.
Murphy has a zest for the role, being likable at first but turns this initial burst into something much more delightful. A great villain often makes a dull hero look better in comparison, and Murphy is so deliciously evil that a bland protagonist like Lisa Reisert is noteworthy if only because of the level of bad guy she struggles against.
