Lisa (Rachel McAdams) is a highly competent manager of a large Miami hotel. She is used to dealing with crises with great equanimity and a smile on her face. But after attending her Grandmother's funeral (on her divorced mother's side) she is flying back to the comforts of home and the reassuring presence of her father (Brian Cox). The story really begins when, at the airport, her flight is delayed and she witnesses another passenger hurling abuse at a ground hostess. She attempts to step in and elegantly defends the woman, but 'the angry man' looks as if he's going to turn his rage on her. Until the prophetically named Jackson Rippner (Cillian Murphy), gently intervenes and saves the day - not least with the power of his piercing, bluer than baby blues. Jackson, despite Lisa's resistance, manages to build a rapport with her while they both wait for their flight in the bar. By the time she realises she is seated beside him on the plane she is happy to allow him to calm her nerves at take-off.

The characterisation is very well drawn and the acting more than matches it. McAdams plays Lisa as a smart, confident lady, not to be taken in by the first cute guy who comes along and flutters his eyelashes at her. But at the same time she manages to communicate, through shy smiles and her gratitude at Jackson's charming treatment of her, that she isn't adverse to this handsome stranger. Murphy, on the other hand, is initially all good guy: charismatic, funny, cute, and seemingly caring. When Lisa asks him what he does, he says in the deathly serious tones of a dangerous man "as luck would have it, my business is all about you"; Murphy leaves no room for doubt about Jackson's viciousness and just how far he will go to get what he wants.

It's a pity that the TV advertising will probably give away the structure of the plot before anyone gets to see it. It's a very simple set-up and doesn't bear too much analysis, suffice to say that it involves Lisa's father, a powerful guest at her hotel and Jackson's chilling, unwavering intention to do his job. Screenwriter Carl Ellsworth (who developed the story with Dan Foos) has presented a very tight drama, most of which unfolds in the claustrophobic confines of an airplane. The film's best scenes take place on board the plane, and are a marked contrast to the exploding, chasing mayhem of the last couple of sequences. Director Wes Craven (best known for horror franchises Scream and Nightmare on Elm Street franchise) deftly taps into Ellsworth's Hitchcockian thriller, which is driven by two principal characters and, in the mode of Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Spellbound, etc., uses the smallest nuances in the expressions of the actors to create tension and suspense. All of this, along with the (again Hitchcockian) atmospheric strings supplied by Marco Beltrami, and the current zeitgeist for flying fear, adds up to a very watchable movie.

Rated 12A (see IFCO website for details)
Red Eye is released on 2nd September 2005.
Red Eye – Official website