Red Eye

Wes Craven leaves the horror genre behind to make Red Eye, a small thriller with a couple of sure to be big actors and just a few locations too. There are no boring parts in the 85 minutes of the movie and it sounds short, but is just enough to keep you entertained the whole time.

My favorite actress at the moment Rachel McAdams plays Lisa Reisert, a young hotel manager currently in Dallas, TX for her grandmother's funeral. She's going back home to Miami where her divorced father Joe (Brian Cox) lives. While in line to board the plane she meets Jackson Rippner played by Cillian Murphy, a young and charming man with whom she makes an instant connection. The plane gets delayed and they learn the airline has arranged for them to take the Red Eye a little bit later, so Jackson goes for a drink at the airport's bar and after some hesitation she follows. They talk and drink, some sparks fly, and then they're called to board the plane. Lisa finds her seat and it turns out that Jackson is seated right next to her.
It could've been the beginning of a beautiful relationship, only that a few minutes later Jackson reveals why he's really there. He's been following her for weeks as he's part of plot to kill the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, who's that day going to stay at Lisa's hotel as always and so they need Lisa to make the arrangements to change his room (she's the only one who can do it) so they can have an easier target. If she refuses to help, there's a killer outside her father's house waiting for Jackson's call to kill him.

Nothing big happens that threatens the entire plane or anything like that, instead, we get a cat and mouse game as Lisa delays the plane call to make the arrangements and also tries to find a way to let somebody know what's going on without Jackson knowing, though he's very smart and always messes up her attempts.

Very good work by Wes Craven here keeping us on the edge at all times and great performances by Rachel who looks beautiful and it seems that she had very little makeup, and Cillian which is pronounced Killian, probably because he's British. The rest of the small cast is good too from Brian Cox to Jayma Mays who plays Cynthia the Assistant Manager at the hotel. There's also a very small part for Survivor's Colby Donaldson who plays a Secret Service Agent in charge of the Deputy Secretary and his family.

With likeable actors playing likeable characters (even though one of them is a killer) and a smart script where there are no classic stupid teens in danger hiding in the wrong places and always taking the worst decisions, Red Eye is a very good movie making the great comeback that Wes Craven should've had instead of that piece of shit he made earlier this year.