Red Eye is a 2005 thriller film directed by Wes Craven and starring Rachel McAdams as a hotel manager ensnared in an assassination plot by a terrorist (Cillian Murphy) while aboard a red eye flight to Miami. The film score was composed and conducted by Marco Beltrami. This is Cillian Murphy's second role of 2005 as a villain, the first being Dr. Jonathan Crane / The Scarecrow in Batman Begins.
Plot
Lisa Reisert (played by Rachel McAdams) fears flying, and following her grandmother's funeral in Dallas, Texas, she takes a night flight (called a red-eye flight; hence the title) home to Miami, Florida. While in the check-in line, she meets a pleasant senior lady (played by Angela Paton) who is interested in Lisa's Dr. Phil book. When she says she is a fan, Lisa gives the woman her book, saying she has already read it. She then meets the handsome and charming Jackson Rippner (played by Cillian Murphy) — and has a drink with him at a terminal bar, where Jackson tries to guess what cocktail Lisa prefers (he says a Seabreeze, but she orders a Baybreeze instead; even though she always orders a Seabreeze any other time).
When boarding her plane, Lisa is pleasantly surprised that her seat is next to Jackson's. Shortly after the plane takes off, however, Rippner reveals that he is a terrorist operative working for a group intending to assassinate the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Charles Keefe (played by Jack Scalia) and his family. Lisa is instrumental to their plan because she is the acting manager at the Lux Atlantic Hotel where the Keefe family is staying. If she refuses to cooperate, Rippner will deploy a hitman to kill her father, Joe (played by Brian Cox) at his home in Miami. Lisa is unable to warn anyone about the plot without jeopardizing her father's safety, and the longer she waits, the harder it will become to prevent the murders.
She desperately attempts to devise a plan to stop the assassination and save her father. When the woman from the check-in line stops by to discuss the book, Lisa writes a warning inside before returning it to her. However, Rippner discovers what Lisa did and headbutts her unconscious and retrieves the book before the message is found. Lisa later goes into the bathroom and leaves a warning on the mirror with soap, but Rippner is waiting outside, and, seeing the message, shoves her back in.
Jackson threatens Lisa in the airplane bathroom.
Lisa begs Rippner not to kill her father, and he warns about gambling with her father's life. Noticing a scar above Lisa's breast, he asks about its history. Lisa refuses to answer, and Rippner starts choking her for not being honest with him when he had been brutally honest with her. After releasing her, he wipes the mirror.
The assassination plan is to launch a missile at the hotel from a small yacht moored in the nearby harbor. However, the Deputy Secretary always prefers a particular suite, one facing the city (away from the harbor). To execute the assassination, Rippner forces Lisa to phone the hotel and order the staff to change the reservation from Room 3825 to a particular suite (Suite 4080) facing the harbor.
After storm turbulence temporarily disconnects the airphone service, Lisa successfully calls her assistant, Cynthia (played by Jayma Mays), and has her move the politician to the targeted suite. Rippner tells Lisa her father will be safe only after Rippner receives confirmation that the Keefes are dead. Meanwhile, the Secret Service checks and clears the suite, and the Secretary settles in with his family; the Coast Guard has also checked out the yacht and found nothing suspicious (the missile is hidden underwater).
After the airplane lands and taxies to the gate, Lisa tells Rippner the history behind her scar, saying she was attacked and that she will never let that happen to her again; she then stabs Rippner in the throat with a pen, grabs his cell phone, and bolts off the plane into the terminal. Lisa runs through the airport, narrowly escaping both airport security and Rippner. She steals an SUV and uses the cell phone to call Cynthia and warn her to evacuate the hotel immediately and that the deputy director is an assassination target. The Secret Service removes the Secretary and his family from the room seconds before the Javelin missile hits the hotel. Lisa then calls her father, Joe, to warn him about the hitman, but the cell phone battery dies.
Lisa rushes to Joe's house and finds the hitman (played by Dane Farwell) on the porch, about to enter and kill her father. She rams the hitman with the SUV, killing him and crashing through the front door. Joe stumbles in from the kitchen, stunned to see a crashed SUV and a dead man in his wrecked foyer; he tells Lisa the police are on their way.
While Lisa calls the hotel to see if everything is alright, Jackson Rippner arrives. He has knocked out Joe so he can deal with her first. Rippner chases Lisa through the house with a knife, eventually throwing her down the staircase. Lisa crawls to where the dead hitman's gun was dropped and threatens Rippner. When he attempts to escape, Lisa shoots him. Wounded, he knocks the gun from her hand and is about to kill her when Joe shoots Rippner, just as the police arrive. Although Rippner is still alive when he is transported to an ambulance, it is unknown if he survives his wounds.
At the hotel, the Homeland Secretary and the Secret Service express their gratitude to Lisa and her assistant Cynthia, who also helped save them by pulling the fire alarm and rushing to their suite to warn them. Lisa and Cynthia then head for a bar for some drinks to celebrate.
Production
This film was written for Sean Penn and Robin Wright Penn. Wes Craven decided to go with younger leads who weren't as recognizable. Winona Ryder was also considered for playing the part of Lisa Reisert.
Because of Cillian Murphy's Irish accent, Wes Craven was unsure if he would be able to pull off Jackson Rippner, since the character was specifically written as an American.[1]
Cast
Reception
Red Eye was widely praised prior to the theatrical release, and has since earned an overall rating of 78% on Rotten Tomatoes and 71 on Metacritic.
Red Eye also gained high praise from many publications, including The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and the Chicago-Sun Times' Roger Ebert. The film grossed $57,891,803 domestically, doubling the estimated $26,000,000 budget. Internationally the film also grossed an additional $37,685,971, making its total to $95,577,774. Red Eye also proved to be a hit with rentals, grossing an additional $49,620,000.
In South Korea, this film was released as "나이트 플라이트" (Night Flight) to distinguish from the Korean film with a similar name, which was released in the same year.
References
- ^ Craven, Wes. "Making Red Eye". [Red Eye (DVD special features)].
External links
