Flying at 40,000 feet in a cavernous, state-of-the-art E-474 aircraft, Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster) faces every mother's worst nightmare when her six-year-old daughter Julia vanishes without a trace mid-flight from Berlin to New York. Already emotionally devastated by the unexpected death of her husband, Kyle desperately struggles to prove her sanity to the disbelieving flight crew and passengers while facing the very real possibility that she may be losing her mind. While neither the plane's Captain Rich (Sean Bean), nor Air Marshal Gene Carson (Peter Sarsgaard) want to doubt the bereaved widow, all evidence indicates that her daughter was never on board resulting in paranoia and doubt among the passengers and crew of the plane. Finding herself desperately alone, Kyle can only rely on her own wits to solve the mystery and save her daughter.

Going into the movie you knew there had to be some kind of trick or even twist to make the movie work the question just whether or not it would work and if they would reveal it too soon. And that’s the best part of the movie it doesn’t hint at the secret nor does it try to bash you over the head with it either it is happy to keep you in the dark until the very last moment before it lets you in on the secret. Whether you guessed right or wrong on the secret the fact that the movie holds on to it so tightly is what makes the movie so suspenseful and for that matter any good. The Forgotten is recent movie that comes to mind that so stupidly gave the movie away in the trailers for that matter that you found it hard to be riveted to a story that you already knew the ending to, I like that Flightplan plays it close to the vest as the movie is a suspense thriller and all the suspense comes from not knowing what is or what isn’t. Oh, the movie is no masterpiece but it is a fun, suspenseful ride like going on a cheap roller coaster and throwing up after words. You really shouldn’t want to do this but you do just like you end up liking the movie and being entertained by it.

Jodie Foster is a good actor and she does a marvelous job in the movie. You can see her as the fraught and almost hysterical mother that would tear the plane end to end to find her daughter. She is the suspense of the movie; it is her almost palpable terror and panic that keeps the movie fueled from scene to scene. I have a hard time seeing them finding anyone better to play the role and while it is similar to Panic Room it has enough of its own persona that it doesn’t seem a blatant rip off. None of the other actors really stood out and I don’t think they were meant to for that matter. Peter Sarsgaard does an ok job as the air marshal but nothing to steal the show and without Jodie Foster the movie wouldn’t have stood a chance. The movie was everything it set out to be and worth at least one viewing even if you might not want to ever see it again.

Ah, the moviedom world of post 9/11 is so scattered with references to that event that they probably wouldn’t have worked before 9/11. The movie uses freely of the events that occurred on that tragic day for its fuel that makes the movie plausible but also for any number of plot spin-offs and stories. Fear of Arabian people, fear of hijacking, post 9/11 air federal rules the movie sees no bounds as off limits in using the events of the tragedy as fodder for its film. I can see the uproar that might have caused several years ago but the movie flies easily below the radar even though it is so strongly influenced by the tragedy. I don’t know whether or not to be angry at such artistic license or just to accept it as the cynicism of a world that has changed since the tragedy of 9/11.
3.5 stars out of 5