(Credit: www.DVDTown.com)
Director:
Wes Craven
Cast:
Rachel McAdams……….Lisa Reisert
Cillian Murphy……….Jack Rippner
Brian Cox……….Joe Reisert
Jayma Mays……….Cynthia
Jack Scalia……….Charles Keefe
Beth Toussaint Coleman……….Linda Keefe
DreamWorks presents Red Eye. Screenplay by Carl Ellsworth, based on a story by Ellsworth and Dan Foos. Running time: 85 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some intense sequences of violence, and language).
The movie:
He has made us “scream” and given us chills up and down “Elm Street,” but for Wes Craven’s latest movie he gives us suspense at 30,000 feet. Red Eye is a thriller about a guy and a girl in a cramped space. No, this isn’t a game like “Seven Minutes in Heaven,” but rather a scenario of what happens when two strangers sit next to each other on an airplane.
Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams) is a woman who’s always on the move. If working as the desk manager at a luxury hotel wasn’t bad enough, she has to contend with the heavy downpour that has delayed her flight back to Miami. To add to the frustration, a clumsy woman spills her newly bought Starbucks coffee all over her blouse. This is the least of her problems, however. It would soon get much worse.
Luckily for Lisa, she meets an attractive guy with steely blue eyes while waiting inside the Dallas-Ft. Forth airport. His name is Jack Rippner (Cillian Murphy) and when he was a child, the kids would make fun of him; calling him names like “Jack the Ripper”. That old saying where sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you, well, tell that to Jack.
Everything seems hunky-dory as Jack sticks up for Lisa against an irate passenger, and the two share drinks and nachos at the Tex-Mex eatery inside the terminal. When they board the same flight and sit down next to each other, something is amiss. Jack jokingly inquires if Lisa was stalking him. “No,” she replies. They settle in their seats and Lisa has a worrisome look. She’s tense about the flight. During takeoff, Jack, in a relaxed manner, converses with her, trying to keep Lisa focused on him, not the rattling of the airplane.
As the 767 levels off, and maintains its current altitude, this seemingly 85-minute in-flight romance quickly turns into a knuckle-driven thrill ride.
It turns out Jack had an ulterior motive when he happened upon Lisa in the terminal. “As fate would have it, my business is all about you,” he confesses. Jack works for a group of men who want to send a “big, brash message” to the defense secretary of Homeland Security, Charles Keefe. The seemingly urban-terrorist needs her assistance because the secretary and his family are staying at the same hotel she manages. As collateral to make sure Lisa follows his instructions to a T, a man is sitting outside her father’s house with orders to kill him if she does not do what’s asked. Quite the predicament, indeed.
The plot to Red Eye is, of course, far-fetched if not outright implausible. Wes Craven knows this, but he’s competent to know what makes for a good thriller. Characters and atmosphere are the key. Rachel McAdams is believable as woman who knows how to manage a hotel, as well as being Jack Rippner’s prey. But she doesn’t have the “damsel in a dress” mentality that we have seen so many times in the past. Yes, she is scared by Jack and what may happen to her father, but Lisa is strong-minded. It’s because she has already lived the life of victim, as she was sexually assaulted while in college. The pain and anguish Lisa felt then is not an experience she wants to go through again.
Cillian Murphy is cool and has it all together as Jack Rippner. For a man who’s battled zombies (28 Days Later) and Batman (Batman Begins), he sure does have a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde way about him. His character, Jack, is pleasant and mild-mannered to the point where a woman could easily take him home to meet her parents. Yet, he can become this crazed psychopath who won’t rest until he gets what he wants. If this means getting a little bloody in the process, then so be it.
What’s interesting about Wes Craven’s thriller is that while Lisa’s life is put in jeopardy, she ultimately affects the lives of two different people: her father and the defense secretary. Lisa is vulnerable, but holds the cards in what will happen next. She even does her best poker face during one sequence on the plane.
Generally, thrillers can be a mixed bag to some. They are easily confused as horror pictures, but the emphasis is not on the blood and guts; thrillers look to scare you by fear and apprehension. Red Eye is gripping in the sense that the villain isn’t revealed until the last possible moment. Jack tells Lisa about who he is; what he wants; how he intends to get it; and why he’s doing it in the first place. Thus, leaving us to just wait and see how the story will unfold. And that’s the beauty about a good thriller. It takes a hold of the viewer and doesn’t let go until the closing credits appear.
Score: 8/10
The DVD:
VIDEO: How does it look?
(Presented in 2.40:1 Anamorphic Widescreen)
If fantabulous was a word, that’s how I’d describe the video transfer. It is absolutely stunning. This is due in large part with Wes Craven working hand-and-hand with his cinematographer Robert Yeoman. But special attention should be paid to the costume design and set design, in particular the simple color palate. The colors help highlight the characters. Rachel McAdams wears mostly earth tones and blacks because she’s always on the move, and because the colors are simple and convenient. Cillian Murphy wears dark blues to compliment his steely eyes, indicating something mysterious about his character.
Score: 9/10
AUDIO: How does it sound?
(English and French Dolby Digital 5.1; English Dolby Digital 2.0)
The sound coming from your home theater setup is clear and crisp when Red Eye is in play. It doesn’t matter if you have surround speakers around your room or not, because you have the option to hear the movie in 5.1 or 2.0 (which is broadcast TV quality). But if you have surround sound, you can hear a good bit of ambient noise like the airliner in flight. The dialogue is well defined, even when Jack Rippner is talking in a low voice to Lisa.
Score: 8.5/10
SPECIAL FEATURES: Commentary with Wes Craven, a few featurettes, and gag reel!!!
A modest success at the box office in 2005, DreamWorks delivers a disc with not many bells and whistles.
For this in-flight movie we begin with the making of Red Eye. A little over 11 minutes in length, we get a run-of-the-mill behind-the-scenes look at Wes Craven’s latest picture. Prior to production the script was a hot property. According to an executive producer, he read Carl Ellsworth screenplay one weekend, showed it to some suits on Monday and it was sold. Not bad for a guy who previously wrote scripts for “Xena: Warrior Princess”. Another topic is the production design that went into creating the claustrophobic effect of being on an airplane. Designer Bruce Miller used the body style of a 767 plane, and pieced it together with accessories from other planes.
Aspiring actors should watch Wes Craven talk about the anatomy of one particular scene; where Rachel McAdams’ character is in the airplane’s bathroom. In the scene Craven did not instruct McAdams how to react. She went on instinct.
While waiting for the complementary peanuts to arrive, watch Wes Craven: A New Kind of Thriller. In the 10-minute featurette, Craven insists that the difference between a horror picture and a thriller is that in a thriller there is “vulnerability of the soul, not the body.” Also included is a little anecdote about Cillian Murphy and how Craven was cautious about casting him. He didn’t believe Murphy, with his roguish Irish accent, could play the part of an American. So Murphy, who was getting married in two days at the time, boards a plane and reads the script (Go figure!) on his way to meeting Wes for lunch. Turns out, Craven was impressed with the man with steely blue eyes.
After the featurettes is six minutes of bloopers and outtakes. The gag reel is lacking in laugh-out-loud moments, but the best bits are from a precocious little girl that has a small, but nonetheless important, role in the film. For one of her outtakes, she goes up to Rachel McAdams and asks, “Is this man bothering you, cause I can take him out in a New York minute.” She could probably do it, too.
Listening to the commentary track with Wes Craven, the film’s producer Marianne Maddalena, and editor Patrick Lussier, you get a good overview of making of Red Eye – and how important re-shoots are to a picture. They are quick to point out “Where’s Waldo”-type moments in scenes that involve people they know and have worked with in the past. It turns out one cameo was a guy who played a detective in Scream 2, and another is by screenwriter Carl Ellsworth. Besides picking out faces and showing scenes that need re-shoots or some extra days of shooting, a good portion is spent on the psychological aspect of the film; like Jack’s keenness in watching Lisa. When she threatens to alert the flight attendants about him, Jack would simply tell them she’s had a bit much to drink. That’s because he watched her intently as she drank a good portion of her alcoholic beverage at the Tex-Mex. Even when the film strays outside the box of conventional thinking, you have moments like this where attention to detail is vital to the storytelling.
As you reach the final destination, you can watch previews for the upcoming release of Just Like Heaven on DVD, as well as two titles that are currently available: The Island and Cry Wolf.
Score: 6/10
