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Flightplan may have started out flying high but in the end was so full of holes it left everyone feeling grounded. Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster) lost her husband, her daughter and now her wits on a flight from Berlin to New York. When she has trouble proving her daughter was ever on board, the Captain (Sean Bean) and Air Marshall (Peter Sarsgaard) have to keep her calm and maintain order.

Flightplan starts out as a stylized, Twilight Zone meets Hitchcock thriller but inept writing and an unoriginal ending make for a disappointing overall experience.  When Kyle wakes up and starts looking for her daughter on a dark, sold-out flight you find yourself on the edge of your seat trying to decipher with her what the possible answer could be. It’s not like someone can just disappear at 30,000 feet. Or can they? The keep you guessing and speculating as to the outcome but in the end Hollywood does what it does best and bows out instead of actually making strides at creativity.

Foster remains a talented actress and in no way is to blame for this airline atrocity.  Granted the last major role we saw her in was Panic Room and she is still panicked three years later. But she excels at intensity and is able to keep it believable without going over the top. An actor who did not respond well was Sarsgaard. He is still carrying around that dopey, I couldn't care less attitude he had in _Garden State_. It worked great then but was totally out of place here and certainly not what this character needed. His character did have one ironic line in the movie though as he states, “The thing about bad in-flight movies, you can’t walk out of the theater.” Maybe he felt as trapped in this film as we did.

But even as bad as Sarsgaard was, the fault in this film lies directly on the shoulders of the writers. Many of you will walk away thinking you could have written a better ending, and many of you would be correct. I wish I could go into detail about some of the holes and ridiculous plot sequences without giving away the movie. But let me spare you from seeing them at all by encouraging you to take a later flight.

Flightplan is Rated PG-13 for violence and some intense plot material (actually a little plot material would have been nice).  It started out with First Class potential but now has been bumped to coach.

The Mungle 9/20/05

Matt hosts the weekly syndicated Indie Rock Radio Show Spin 180. Plus with his wife Cindy they do a weekly radio feature, The Mungles on Movies. For additional reviews and interview clips visit the website www.mungleshow.com