RED EYE

Lisa Reisert, after attending her grandmother's funeral in Dallas, is about to take the night flight back to Miami, where she lives and works. At the airport terminal, she meets the young and charming Jack Rippner, and a certain complicity immediately arises between them. By chance, they end up sitting next to each other on the plane, and after getting to know each other, Jack reveals to Lisa that he is part of a terrorist plot aimed at assassinating a well-known politician staying at the hotel where the girl works. Lisa will have to help Jack with the murder, otherwise her father will be killed in turn by a terrorist accomplice. "Red Eye", literally "red eye", an informal term used in the United States to refer to night flights and a catchy title for the latest work of a now innocuous Wes Craven. After the heights of the "Scream" trilogy and the half-step misstep with "Cursed", Craven dives headfirst into pure thriller, a genre he had never explored, except contaminated with horror elements. In "Red Eye", however, there is nothing to do with the world of horror, but we find ourselves in front of a high-altitude thriller, tense and minimalist, but also improbable and, on more than one occasion, awkward. Exemplary is the sense of rhythm that the film in question manages to express: tight editing (work of Patrick Lussier, Craven's trusted and habitual editor since the times of "Nightmare - From the Deep of the Night"); linear narrative solutions and devoid of any drop in tone; pathos always high and ability to keep the attention from start to finish. But at the same time, "Red Eye" presents a script (work of Carl Ellsworth) compact but improbable and quite fanciful in more than one solution, one of them being the way the terrorists intend to kill the politician, which can even seem ridiculous. Moreover, Craven proves to be in great shape in showing the subtle psychological torture that the terrorist applies to the unfortunate Lisa, but seems rather out of place in filming the action moments that frequently appear in the last half hour of the film, resulting almost awkward. Fascinating are the main characters: Lisa is impeccably played by the promising Rachel McAdams ("Mean Girls"), who draws an indestructible protagonist at work but extremely insecure in life, a survivor of an accident that taught her to distrust strangers; Jack Rippner (a name that is a whole program, since it sounds a bit like Jack the Ripper!) is played by the excellent Cillian Murphy (seen in "28 Days Later" and "Batman Begins"), perfect in the role of the psychopath, with the face of a good boy and the cerulean gaze, immediately odious in his way of behaving, but, in summary, turning out to be the most likable character of the entire film. Disappointing, however, are the supporting characters: from the improbable old lady met at the terminal, to the insignificant politician object of the attack, up to the figure of Lisa's father (played by the very good Brian Cox), a figure almost evanescent although fundamental to the plot. In short, "Red Eye" presents us with a Craven surely far removed from the brutal films made in the 70s, as well as understated compared to the fortunate and beautiful cults "Nightmare" and "Scream", but that, all in all, entertains and presents itself as an innocuous form of entertainment, sometimes awkward, but able to keep the spectator's interest throughout its duration. Do not expect, therefore, to attend the last "masterpiece" of the master of chills Wes Craven, but only a pleasant and improbable thriller. Curiosity. The director Wes Craven, along with the screenwriter Carl Ellsworth, allowed themselves a cameo in the role of two passengers sitting in the plane in which the film is set.