Flightplan - 2005

A good, thrilling movie, I liked it very much. It starts grim, because Kyle (Jodie Foster)'s husband has just died; she's in Berlin with her 6 years old daughter, and she has to take a flight to America, to bring her husband's body home. She's the first to get on the plane, and after it takes off she falls asleep. When she wakes up, a passenger tells her they've been flying for three hours. She looks around her but can't see her daughter. She thinks she might have wandered off a little, like kids do, and starts looking around. She can't see her, so she moves to other sections of the plane, going up and down, but Julia is nowhere to be found. She starts getting anxious, starts calling Julia, she asks for the hostess' help, then insists to talk to the captain. Apparently nobody has ever seen this child, but the captain (Sean Bean) yields to her prayers, and orders a good, thorough search, but Julia isn't found!! She couldn't go anywhere, the plane had alredy above ground when she fell asleep, she must be on the plane, but nobody has seen her, nobody can find her...
very nice indeed, well done, well studied, good actors in the right role. I don't know who that little girl is, but she looks just like a little Jodie Foster; there's a scene where their two faces are very near, just to show their resemblance, which is amazing; that is if it is all natural and not created with makeup. Anyway the effect was really good. I liked the captain too, Sean Bean was really cute and touching, in his own way, here.
Spoilers, if you go on reading.
The captain was a lovely character, because he listened to her, although it was clear that everyone else thought she was just creating trouble, and ordered a good search. When Julia is not found, she insists, but the captain finds out that not only Julia's name is not on the list, not only her boarding paper is missing, but now he receives comunication that she died along with her father, so he doesn't believe her anymore. How could you blame him at this point? He didn't know her, he had the whole plane searched already... now he thinks she has gone crazy after the tragedy of losing all her family! Plus, a security man is tricking them both; the captain trusts him because of his position, and Kyle thinks he's helping her, but actually now he goes to the captain to tell him she's got a bomb on the plane, to put lots of money of a bank account, land the plane and go out. He tells the captain this is all the woman's plan, and tells her that after the plane lands they'll search the plane, while in the meantime keeping them separated so they don't talk to each other. When everybody gets off the plane, she runs to the captain, still talking about her daughter, and his so fed up with that that tells her to drop the pretence, she's got the money now, so just stop it with all that! The security man tries to get off with the others, to get to safety with all the others, leaving the police think she's the bomber, but she yells to him that she hasn't allowed him. Smart move, so now she's alone in the plane with him and his accomplice, a hostess, but she's not so rotten as he is, and not so sure she wants to blow up a little girl, so she runs out. Now it's just the two of them, but Kyle designed the plane, she knows all about it, so she finds her little girl and blows him up.
Strong scene, when everybody sees that, they think the crazy woman really did it! But then , they see a figure walking out of there, it's Kyle, and she's got something in her arms. When they realise it's her daughter, their faces are all the same. They can't believe it, and feel sorry and guilty they had not believed her. She walks with her daughter in her arms under the eyes of everybody on the plane. They all had turned against her, but now can see she was telling the truth. The captain expresses openly his apologies.
Beautiful finale, I liked it a lot, and Sean Bean was touching, and Jodie Foster was the right choice for this role, believable as the smart, strong woman who won't give up.