|
Director:
Robert Shwentke
Cast:
Jodie Foster, Peter Sarsgaard, Erika Christensen, Sean Bean, Haley
Ramm |
Rating: (1 to 5
stars)
 |
MPAA Rating:
PG-13 for violence and some intense plot material. |
|
Review:
 Good
plots, like jigsaw puzzles, need every piece to fit if it's to
work. Let's say you've been working on a copy of the “Mona Lisa”
and you're down to the last few pieces, when suddenly, you
discover that the dozen or so that are left not only don't fit
with the rest of the puzzle, but don't fit to each other either.
This is what is known in the movie biz as a “wilter.” a film which
wilts near the end after giving the viewer a really satisfying
hour or so. This is a classic of this kind of thing.
We first meet Kyle Pratt(Jodie Foster) at the Berlin
Alexanderplatz subway station looking really depressed. It seems
that after she's walked around with her husband for a while in the
Berlin snow, he's fallen off the roof of some building and is now
dead.
There's now no reason for either her or her daughter Julia(Marlene
Lawson) to remain in Germany, so they take the coffin and get on
the latest super-jumbo jet, which she helped design, back to New
York.
We know what's going to happen. We've seen the trailer and the
foreshadowing is soo thick you need an axe to slice it. The kid
knows it, the tension is in every frame. As the other passengers
board the plane there's an attempt at humor, but it kind of falls
flat. It is however completely typical of the “getting on the
airplane” experience.
Then, as expected, the kid disappears, and all hell breaks loose.
Kyle, as any mother would, goes nuts, and the attendants(Erika
Christensen, Kate Beahan, et al), Captain (Sean Bean) and air
marshall Gene Carson (Peter Sarsgaard) all think they have a
nutcase on their hands, as Julia wasn't not only on the flight
manifest, but nobody even saw her.
Everybody goes by the book here, both in procedure and plotline.
We're not exactly sure whether Kyle is nuts or someone has
kidnapped poor Julia. What's really cool during the first three
quarters of the film is that Director Swentke and the writers have
managed to plant that glorious seed of doubt. There's lots of
action and the acting is wonderful. Sarsgaard is getting better
all the time, But then, we discover that the writers couldn't
figure out how to get the plot to work.
Oh, they try, but the damn few last pieces won't fit! There's a
conclusion all right, and there are explosions all right, but last
fifteen minutes are extremely stupid and almost ruin all that good
stuff we've had before. This is a turn-off-your-brain kind of
thing, and maybe if you do that, you can get past the wilting.
Pity, though.
Eric Lurio
|
