Flightplan

Infobox Film
name = Flightplan


image_size =
caption =
director = Robert Schwentke
producer = Robert DeNozzi
Charles J.D. Schlissel
Brian Grazer
writer = Peter A. Dowling
Billy Ray
narrator =
starring = Jodie Foster
Peter Sarsgaard
Sean Bean
Erika Christensen
music = James Horner
cinematography =
editing = Thom Noble
distributor = Touchstone Pictures
released = September 23, 2005
runtime = 98 minutes
country = United States
language = English
budget = $50,000,000
gross = $223,387,299
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website = http://flightplan.movies.go.com/index_main.html
amg_id = 1:312440
imdb_id = 0408790

"Flightplan" is a 2005 thriller film directed by Robert Schwentke and starring Jodie Foster, Peter Sarsgaard, Erika Christensen, and Sean Bean. It was released in North America on September 23, 2005, 67 years after "The Lady Vanishes", on which it is based.

Plot

After falling asleep and waking up about three hours into an airplane flight, Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster) discovers her six-year-old daughter Julia (Marlene Lawston) is missing. She starts searching the plane, but is told that, according to the passenger manifest, her daughter never boarded the flight. None of her fellow passengers remembers having seen her either.

Captain Marcus Rich (Sean Bean) refuses to allow the cargo hold to be searched because he is afraid that the searchers could be hurt if the freight shifted due to turbulence. Both Marcus and the other crew members suspect that Kyle has become unhinged by her husband's recent death, and has imagined bringing her daughter aboard. She has no boarding pass stub for her daughter and the child is not on the manifest. In addition, the flight attendant who took the passenger headcount never saw anyone in the seat that Julia was supposed to have occupied. Faced with the crew's increasing skepticism regarding her daughter's existence, Kyle becomes more and more desperate. Because of her increasingly erratic, panicked behavior, air marshal Gene Carson (Peter Sarsgaard) is ordered by Rich to guard her.

Kyle herself begins to doubt her own sanity after being told Julia had died together with her husband, but then she notices the heart Julia had earlier drew on the window by her seat with her finger. Because Kyle is an aeronautical engineer and had helped to design the engines used on the aircraft, a fictional Elgin E-474, [http://flightplan.movies.go.com] she is able to make use of her knowledge of the aircraft's layout and escapes to hunt for her daughter. Making her way to the freight deck, she even opens her late husband's casket. Carson finds her, handcuffs her, and escorts her back to her seat.

At this point, it is revealed that Carson and a coroner in Berlin are the true villains. Carson tells the captain that Kyle has told him she is a hijacker and is threatening to blow up the aircraft with explosives hidden in the un-x-rayed casket unless the airline transfers $50,000,000 into a bank account. In fact, the villains had killed Kyle's husband and abducted Julia in order to frame Kyle. After the plane lands, Carson intends to blow up the avionics section, killing the unconscious Julia, and leave Kyle dead with the detonator in her hand.

After making an emergency landing in Goose Bay, Newfoundland, the passengers are evacuated. As the captain starts to debark, Kyle talks to him and realizes who has to be behind the plot. Playing the hijacker, Kyle demands that Carson stay on board. As soon as the plane's door closes, Kyle knocks Carson unconscious with a fire extinguisher, then handcuffs him to a rail, takes the bomb detonator from his pocket and goes in search of Julia. Carson regains consciousness and takes a concealed gun from his leg and shoots the handcuffs. Kyle locks herself in the cockpit. She opens a hatch door to the upper level and throws out a binder to fool him into thinking she is escaping. Carson tries to head her off when he hears the thud, allowing Kyle to escape. Kyle encounters Carson's co-conspirator, flight attendant Stephanie, and knocks her down. Stephanie panics and flees.

Kyle finally finds the unconscious Julia. Carson sees Kyle escaping through a small door with the detonator in her hand. Carson shoots at her as she closes the door, but she detonates the explosives, killing Carson.

Kyle, carrying Julia, exits via a cargo door. Everyone watches in amazement as Kyle carries her daughter out onto the tarmac.

Cast

*Jodie Foster: Kyle Pratt
*Peter Sarsgaard: Gene Carson
*Sean Bean: Captain Marcus Rich
*Kate Beahan: Stephanie
*Michael Irby: Obaid
*Assaf Cohen: Ahmed
*Erika Christensen: Fiona
*Greta Scacchi: Lisa
*Shane Edelman: Mr. Loud
*Mary Gallagher: Mrs. Loud
*Haley Ramm: Brittany Loud
*Forrest Landis: Rhett Loud
*Fred Tungulsten: Jordan
*Jana Kolesarova: Claudia
*Brent Sexton: Elias
*Marlene Lawston: Julia Pratt
*Judith Scott: Estella
*Tonje Larsgard: Flight Attendant
*Amanda Brooks: Irene

Box office and Reaction

Flightplan grossed $89,602,378 at the box office and over $223,000,000 worldwide. It also grossed $49,270,000 on DVD rentals. The movie was met with mixed reviews from critics. It has a 38% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. In his review Roger Ebert described the film as 'a frightening thriller with an airtight plot', but James Berardinelli saw it as plotwise 'going into a tailspin from which it never recovers.'

Controversy

The Association of Professional Flight Attendants, called for an official boycott of the film, which they say depicts flight attendants as rude, uncaring, indifferent, and even one as a "terrorist." [ [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9523383/ Flight attendants hope to ground 'Flightplan' - More news and other features - MSNBC.com ] ]

Soundtrack

The score of the movie was released September 20, 2005, on Hollywood Records. The music was composed and conducted by James Horner and the disc contains 8 tracks.

Tracklist:

#"Leaving Berlin"
# "Missing Child"
# "The Search"
# "So Vulnerable"
# "Creating Panic"
# "Opening the Casket"
# "Carson's Plan"
# "Mother and Child"

Total Play Time: 50:36

Additional Information

*The DVD release of this movie is one of the few protected with Sony DADC's new ARccOS copy protection.

References

External links

* [http://flightplan.movies.go.com/index_main.html Official site]
* [http://www.apple.com/trailers/touchstone/flightplan/ Film trailer at Apple.com]
*imdb title|id=0408790|title=Flightplan
*rotten-tomatoes|id=flightplan|title=Flightplan
*mojo title|id=flightplan|title=Flightplan

Box Office Leaders USA
before = Just Like Heaven
date = September 25
date2 = October 2
year = 2005
after =