If you stop to think about it, the setup is kind of silly...but, luckily, director Wes Craven...keeps things brisk enough that you rarely do stop to think about.
Red Eye (2005)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:176
Fresh:138
Rotten:38
Average Rating:6.6/10
Consensus: With solid performances and tight direction from Wes Craven, Red Eye is a brisk, economic thriller.
Runtime: 86 mins
Genre: Thriller
Synopsis: From director Wes Craven (the "Scream" franchise) comes "Red Eye," a suspense thriller at 30,000 feet, starring Rachel McAdams ("The Notebook," "Wedding Crashers") and Cillian Murphy ("Batman... From director Wes Craven (the "Scream" franchise) comes "Red Eye," a suspense thriller at 30,000 feet, starring Rachel McAdams ("The Notebook," "Wedding Crashers") and Cillian Murphy ("Batman Begins," "28 Days Later"). Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams) hates to fly, but the terror that awaits her on the night flight to Miami has nothing to do with a fear of flying. Upon boarding the plane, Lisa is pleasantly surprised to find that she is seated next to Jackson (Cillian Murphy), the seemingly charming man with whom she had shared a drink—and perhaps even a brief flirtation—in the airport terminal. But moments after takeoff, Jackson drops his façade and menacingly reveals the real reason he's on board: He is an operative in a plot to kill the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security...and Lisa is the key to its success. If she refuses to cooperate, her own father will be killed by an assassin awaiting a call from Jackson. Trapped within the confines of a jet at 30,000 feet, Lisa has nowhere to run and no way to summon help without endangering her father, her fellow passengers and her own life. As the miles tick by, Lisa knows she is running out of time as she desperately looks for a way to thwart her ruthless captor and stop a terrible murder. "Red Eye" is directed by Wes Craven and produced by Chris Bender and Marianne Maddalena. The executive producers are Bonnie Curtis, Jim Lemley, JC Spink and Mason Novick. The screenplay was written by Carl Ellsworth from a story by Ellsworth and Dan Foos. --© Dreamworks [More]
Starring: Rachel McAdams, Cillian Murphy
Starring: Rachel McAdams, Cillian Murphy
Director: Wes Craven
Director: Wes Craven
Screenwriter: Carl Ellsworth
Story: Dan Foos
Producer: Chris Bender, Marianne Maddalena, Bonnie Curtis
Studio: DreamWorks Distribution LLC
Reviews for Red Eye
A jet-fueled dynamo of airborne horror, the film marks the revitalization of director Wes Craven.
A genuine white-knuckle flight...though it hits some narrative potholes and logical turbulence, it takes you where Craven wants you to go.
Smart, funny, and keenly aware – even celebrating – of its own wild contrivances, it’s the stuff of popcorn-movie bliss.
A good measure of the movie's white-knuckle fun comes from Craven's old-hand familiarity with the way thrillers tick, predicated on the smallest and most banal of missed connections, the kind that get an audience to go crazy.
Wes Craven does a magnificent job in directing this slow-burn, short-fused thriller.
The setup flies, the tension builds, and screenwriter Carl Ellsworth cooks a taut summer page-turner of a thriller with mild political overtones.
... slick and unpretentious, it wants nothing more than to be this year's Cellular -- and for maybe an hour or so it succeeds.
Red Eye is a model of swiftness and efficiency, shrouded in a veil of secrecy.
McAdams delivers a tour de force; Murphy is delightfully evil, and Craven makes a smashing debut with a taut thriller that would be welcome in Hollywood's Golden Era.
Craven's terror-alert white-knuckler is a zippy, unpretentious entry in the subgenre, hinging on the enforced proximity of cat and mouse.
Craven's taut thriller is a B-movie wrapped in a glossy package, but the expert carftsmanship barely conceals the fact that enjoyable as it is, the film is basically plotless
Establishes a mood and manages to keep it edgy and claustrophobic throughout.
No doubt for his next movie Wes will be back to his worn out horror tricks, but for seventy five out of eighty five minutes he's taken a welcome side trip.
Wes Craven tries his hand at Hitchcockian suspense in Red-Eye, and turns in a modest B-movie thriller that's just as invigorating as it is easy to pick apart.
It pulls just about every nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat trick imaginable, yet gets away with it through what is, admittedly, a clever and original gimmick.
Red Eye relies on hoodwinking an audience with its tension, so that the sheer illogic of the conspiracy plot can slip by without detection.
At last – the perfect summer film. Wes Craven delivers a quick, tense high. You gotta go!
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