Red Eye

We saw Red Eye the other night. Interesting. I wanted to like Red Eye, but it somehow didnt stand up to my expectations. The concept of being terrorized aboard a claustrophobic aeroplane in such a way that no one around you knows that you are being terrorized is interesting indeed. Before I go on to dissecting some aspects of the plot, I'd like to say that both the leads, Rachel McAdams and Cillian Murphy, have done an excellent job in their roles. The perpetrator does not seem physically challenging, but the evil twisted mind behind the seemingly harmless person is pretty chilling, I guess. Rachel, is pretty believable in her potrayal of Lisa - not overacted at all, pretty realistic, especially at the end when shes all ready to whack the villian real good with a bat.

But I see too many holes in the plot. The entire plan can fall down because of a few simple "what-ifs". The first thing is that the plan calls for Lisa to call from the air-phone. Now, what-if that particular plane was a somewhat older model that did not have those air-phones? Thats not a small variable at all. Not every plane has air-phones. Well, thank God for the fact that that plane did have air-phones, else there wouldnt be a movie. What if Lisa decided to stay over in Dallas that night? What if she didnt take that flight? The Homeland security person would be happy in his nice hotel suite, and the people on the boat would be still "fishing" out on the bay. Talking about boats, if the security people really wanted, they could have asked the boat to leave that spot completely to ensure 100% safety. There goes the shooting-the-missile-from-the-boat down the drain. What if there was an emergency the same night, and they had to give out that suite to some other customer before she made the call? Would they have asked the other customer to vacate the room?! When the girl in the hotel pulls the fire alarm, why dont the homeland security people already take the dude off the hotel? Why do they have to wait for her to come and tell them personally?

Over-all, I think Jackson Rippner wasnt a very intelligent whatever that what he was. He could have got his target in a manner which wasnt this complicated, with so many variables in play - airlines, aeroplanes, air-phones, boats, delays, coincidences, etc. And lastly, ok, she took your cell-phone, but dude, its an airport!! There are tons of public phones. You dont have a quarter?! And for God's sake, there are even free phones all over the airport!