Lisa is taking a night flight from Dallas to Miami when the guy in the seat next to her calmly announces he has a hit-man waiting outside her father's house who will kill him unless she makes a phone call which will seal someone else's death warrant
This is a gripping, amusing, atypical thriller from the always-interesting Craven, with a neat crackerjack premise and a finely judged pace. The plot is perhaps too slight for a whole movie (it's a sort of big-budget episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents) but the characters are carefully developed before it kicks into high gear and it wisely doesn't take itself too seriously; Mays as Cynthia the luckless hotel night clerk, is hilarious throughout and a great counterpoint to the tension. It's also a nice female emancipation story - Lisa has a painful skeleton in her closet and in the tradition of Craven's heroines doesn't just crumble under the stress but uses all her wits to outsmart and outflank her nemesis. The movie has a bum note at the end for me though when someone else finally pulls the plug on the bad guy - it should have been her. Murphy is a beautiful example of great casting against type here; with his David Cassidy locks and heartbreaker blue eyes he should be a sweet little puppy dog, so when he turns out to be a homicidal maniac fixated on his own professional integrity it's a terrific reversal. The movie wisely keeps the characters, sub-plotting and locations to a minimum, as Robert Yeoman's camera prowls up and down the airplane's aisles and zooms into McAdams' frightened eyes. The trick with material like this I think is to balance plausibility and entertainment value carefully but just keep going forward without worrying about loose ends. The last twenty minutes after Lisa has escaped from the plane keep chugging away with tense moments and Craven proves once again that he's a master of making our hearts beat fast. Featuring a natty score by the prolific Marco Beltrami which adds tremendously to the tension and suspense, this is a fine little Common Woman thriller.
This is a gripping, amusing, atypical thriller from the always-interesting Craven, with a neat crackerjack premise and a finely judged pace. The plot is perhaps too slight for a whole movie (it's a sort of big-budget episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents) but the characters are carefully developed before it kicks into high gear and it wisely doesn't take itself too seriously; Mays as Cynthia the luckless hotel night clerk, is hilarious throughout and a great counterpoint to the tension. It's also a nice female emancipation story - Lisa has a painful skeleton in her closet and in the tradition of Craven's heroines doesn't just crumble under the stress but uses all her wits to outsmart and outflank her nemesis. The movie has a bum note at the end for me though when someone else finally pulls the plug on the bad guy - it should have been her. Murphy is a beautiful example of great casting against type here; with his David Cassidy locks and heartbreaker blue eyes he should be a sweet little puppy dog, so when he turns out to be a homicidal maniac fixated on his own professional integrity it's a terrific reversal. The movie wisely keeps the characters, sub-plotting and locations to a minimum, as Robert Yeoman's camera prowls up and down the airplane's aisles and zooms into McAdams' frightened eyes. The trick with material like this I think is to balance plausibility and entertainment value carefully but just keep going forward without worrying about loose ends. The last twenty minutes after Lisa has escaped from the plane keep chugging away with tense moments and Craven proves once again that he's a master of making our hearts beat fast. Featuring a natty score by the prolific Marco Beltrami which adds tremendously to the tension and suspense, this is a fine little Common Woman thriller.