DVD 98 mins
PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Flightplan
Disney / Buena Vista (9/23/2005)
In Collection
#258

Seen It:
No

Owner:
Ben
Drama, Suspense
USA  /  English

Jodie Foster Kyle Pratt
Sean Bean
Erika Christensen
Peter Sarsgaard

Director Robert Schwentke
Producer Brian Glazer
Writer Peter A. Dowling; Billy Ray

Like a lot of stylishly persuasive thrillers, Flightplan is more fun to watch than it is to think about. There's much to admire in this hermetically sealed mystery, in which a propulsion engineer and grieving widow (Jodie Foster) takes her 6-year-old daughter (and a coffin containing her husband's body) on a transatlantic flight aboard a brand-new jumbo jet she helped design, and faces a mother's worst nightmare when her daughter (Marlene Lawston) goes missing. But how can that be? Is she delusional? Are the flight crew, the captain (Sean Bean) and a seemingly sympathetic sky marshal (Peter Sarsgaard) playing out some kind of conspiratorial abduction? In making his first English-language feature, German director Robert Schwentke milks the mother's dilemma for all it's worth, and Foster's intense yet subtly nuanced performance (which builds on a fair amount of post-9/11 paranoia) encompasses all the shifting emotions required to grab and hold your attention. Alas, this upgraded riff on Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes (not to mention Otto Preminger's Bunny Lake is Missing) is ultimately too preposterous to hold itself together. Flightplan gives us a dazzling tour of the jumbo jet's high-tech innards, and its suspense is intelligently maintained all the way through to a cathartic conclusion, but the plot-heavy mechanics break down under scrutiny. Your best bet is to fasten your seatbelt and enjoy the thrills on a purely emotional level -- a strategy that worked equally well with Panic Room, Foster's previous thriller about a mother and daughter in peril. --Jeff Shannon

Edition Details
Edition Widescreen Edition
Barcode 786936270532
Region Region 1
Release Date 1/24/2006
Packaging Keep Case
Screen Ratio Widescreen 2.35:1 Color (Anamorphic)
Subtitles French; Spanish
Audio Tracks ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1
ENGLISH: DTS 5.1
FRENCH: Dolby Digital 5.1
SPANISH: Dolby Digital 5.1
Layers Single Side, Dual Layer
No. of Disks/Tapes 1

Features
"The Making of..." Documentary
Featurettes
Filmmakers' Commentary
The In-Flight Movie: The Making Of Flightplan Featurette
Cabin Pressure: Designing The Aalto E-474 Featurette
Filmmaker Audio Commentary
Personal Details
Purchase Date 2/2/2006
Purchase Price $19.99
Store Best Buy
Condition New (Still Sealed)
Current Value $19.99
Links Amazon US
DVD Empire