We’re almost at the end of our highlight series but before we head into the final movie, lets get some other movies done. This one kind of matches up as it is directed by Wes Craven, the mastermind behind the start of the Nightmare on Elm Street series. We’re taking a look at Red Eye. Its funny because for the longest time, I thought that I had seen Red Eye but it turns out that I mixed it up with Flight Plan. You know, the one with Jodie Foster? Yeah, my bad, right?
Let’s give this a go!
Red Eye (2005)
Director: Wes Craven
Cast: Rachel McAdam, Cillian Murphy, Brian Cox, Jayma Mays, Jack Scalia
A woman is kidnapped by a stranger on a routine flight. Threatened by the potential murder of her father, she is pulled into a plot to assist her captor in offing a politician.-IMDB
Red Eye is more of a thriller than a horror. But if you know me well, thrillers sometimes can create a sort of intense dread or fear that pure horrors aren’t able to achieve quite so well. Its for the mere fact that it relates to real life more and can just hit those psychological notes. On that note, Red Eye works for the most part. The setting of being enclosed in a plane and then just dealing within confined spaces and one that you truly can’t escape is a good. Then we have Wes Craven as the director who sets the perfect atmosphere along with the characters to give the story a nice push. It manages to give us a sudden twist around in the situation that catches us off guard.
The cast in Red Eye is pretty great. I’m not a huge fan of Rachel McAdams. I liked her well enough in The Notebook and then she was rather fun in Mean Girls being the mean popular girl, I never really thought much of her acting skills. However, as a thriller story protagonist, she works great. She captured this role with a wonderful performance that managed to keep me on the edge of my seat. I guess part of that praise goes out to Cillian Murphy who is fantastic as the bad guy here. He takes on the wolf in a sheep skin role very good. He goes from this amazing charming guy that Lisa (Rachel McAdam’s character) meets randomly and helps her out of a frustrating situation then turns into a man that sits next to her and threatens to kill her father if she doesn’t comply to his wishes for her to switch the rooms of a politician staying at the hotel that she is a manager of. With the decision of either choosing to save your father or the life of a politician, what do you choose? Its a tough decision.
At the same time, Red Eye had some interesting side roles. Of course, we have Brian Cox as the father of Lisa. I’m not entirely familiar with his work but he did look incredibly familiar. But my biggest surprise watching this was that Jayma Mays was in this as a supporting role as Cynthia, the girl working at the hotel desk in communication with Lisa during this event. Jayma Mays is in Glee as a guidance counselor. I love Glee and I’m starting to notice parts of her being here and there nowadays which makes me happy. She’s a fun character who can pull off some cute expressions and she has a very unique voice that gives her some personality as well.
Overall, I don’t have too much to say about Red Eye. It was a thrilling watch. I loved it. It wasn’t exactly unpredictable but it had a lot of pretty intense moments and it all comes down to the great performances and being able to build up the atmosphere for it to feel that way on and off the plane. Red Eye has a little something going for it. Rachel McAdams and Cillian Murphy do an outstanding job at taking on their roles and making us connect with their character. Red Eye became a thrill ride because of that. We never knew whether anything would work out or not. Even if the ending, the plot seemed to unravel a little too much, there were some pretty edgy scenes that worked. For that, its worth a watch 🙂
Have you seen Red Eye? What do you think of it?
Tranquil Dreams 