Movie Review: "Red Eye"
Chic Flick Thriller
"Red Eye" features a terrific premise and a winning starlet, and stars the screen creep of the summer (see "Batman Begins"), Cillian Murphy. It also features cliches and hollow execution, masked as wit and substance. Rachel McAdams plays Lisa Reisert, a woman unflinchingly solid in her job as a manager at an exclusive Miami hotel. Attempting to catch a late flight from Dallas to Miami, she meets Jackson Rippner (Murphy). Rippner is supposed to project one-part mystery and two-parts charm, but it's hard to see how any woman would let down her guard with this stranger. After drinks in the airport lounge, the two characters are surprised to find they're seated next to each other on the flight to Miami. Rippner it turns out, is a terrorist whose been following Reisert, intent on getting her to use her pull to move the secretary of homeland security from one room in her hotel, to another. A battle of wits ensues between a young woman of strength and this menace, and the intrigue and suspense usually work. What does not work, is McAdams' father, played by Brian Cox. Cox' character is in jeopardy - his life a bargaining chip to ensure that McAdams makes the call to her hotel. But Cox seems to be wearing a false beard and toupee, and comes across as creepy as the villain in the picture. There's also an unsure hotel employee, guided by McAdams over the phone, who comes off like an imitation of Jan Brady in "The Brady Bunch Movie" - in the most explosive scene in the movie, she is running around so wide-eyed it leaves an impression of silliness. The movie winds up a little too-neatly, making a statement more for girl power than legitimate drama. Grade: C