RED EYE

Towards the end of this Wes Craven thriller I realised I had seen it before, which speaks to how forgettable it is.

The setup is similar to that of the disappointing 'Drop': a woman is suddenly thrown into a nightmarish situation in which she has to carry out orders to avoid a loved one being killed.

In 'Drop' there is a mystery as to who is sending the orders and why.  Here everything is very clear.

Rachel McAdams is the manager of a luxury hotel in Miami, and Cillian Murphy wants her to move some guests to a different suite, or otherwise her dad (Brian Cox) will be done away with. The guests are a prominent politician (and his family), and it's evident that the reason to move them is so that he can be assassinated. 

McAdams and Murphy are on a plane back to Miami, which makes things all the more dramatic. There's some good cut-and-thrust between them as she tries to find ways not to carry out his instruction whilst trying to save her dad.

Once the plane lands the film goes into action mode, and of course alls well that ends well.  

Everything about the film is competent, from the direction to the screenplay to the acting (although Brian Cox is criminally wasted).  But as I say, it's not a film that lingers in the memory, because it never quite achieves lift-off.  It moves along briskly (a running time of only 85 minutes) but Craven is unable to create much in the way of suspense.

Years after it was made Murphy referred to this picture disparagingly as a B-movie.  That's fair enough, because if I had paid good money to see this in the theatre I might have come away feeling short-changed.  On the other hand I prefer a well-made B-movie to a film with pretensions it can't justify (yes, I'm looking at you 'Drop').

RATING: x Curb Your Enthusiasm