Red Eye (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Red Eye | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by | Wes Craven |
| Produced by | Chris Bender Marianne Maddalena |
| Written by | Carl Ellsworth |
| Starring | Rachel McAdams Cillian Murphy Brian Cox |
| Distributed by | DreamWorks SKG |
| Release date(s) | August 19, 2005 DVD: January 10, 2006 |
| Running time | 85 min. |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $25,000,000 |
| Official website | |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Red Eye is a 2005 drama/thriller film, directed by Wes Craven and written by Carl Ellsworth. It tells the story of hotel manager Lisa Reisert as she is held captive aboard a red eye flight to Miami. Her captor, Jackson Rippner, threatens her and attempts to use her as a tool in part of an assassination plot against a politician.
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[edit] Plot
Lisa Reisert (played by Rachel McAdams) has a fear of flying, and after attending her grandmother's funeral in Dallas, Texas, she has to take a night flight (called a red-eye flight; hence the movie title) to Miami, Florida. She meets Jackson Rippner (played by Cillian Murphy)--whom she initially finds charming--and ends up having a drink with him while they wait to board their delayed flight. When the plane is ready, Lisa is pleasantly surprised to find that her seat is next to Jackson's. After the plane has taken off, however, Rippner reveals that he is an operative working for a group who intends to assassinate the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, and Lisa is instrumental in their plans because of her job at the Lux Atlantic Hotel as acting manager. If she refuses to cooperate, then Rippner will prompt a hit-man to kill her father. Reisert has no way of getting help without jeopardizing her father's safety, and the longer she waits, the harder it will be to prevent the murder.
She tries desperately to save the day. Her first attempt is when she tries to write a warning in a woman's book. However, Rippner finds out, and he headbutts her unconscious. She tries again by going into the bathroom and writing a warning on the mirror with soap. She tries to leave the bathroom but is stopped again. Rippner sees the message and shoves her back in.
Lisa begs Rippner not to kill her father. He responds to her by telling her not to gamble with her father's life. He then notices the scar above Lisa's breast and begins asking her about the scar's history. Lisa refuses to answer and Rippner then starts choking her because she is not being honest with him when he had been nothing but brutally honest with her. After letting go of her throat, he starts erasing the writing on the mirror while she is gasping for breath.
The assassination plan is to use a portable missile launcher from a boat in a nearby harbor and fire it at the hotel. The problem is that the Deputy Secretary likes to stay in a different suite, one that faces the city (away from the harbor). In order to assassinate him, Rippner must force Lisa, who is the manager of that hotel, to make a phone call from the airplane and order the hotel staff to change his reservation to a particular suite that faces the harbor. If she doesn't cooperate with Rippner, he will have her father murdered by a hit-man who is waiting just outside her father's house in Miami.
After one failed attempt due to turbulence from the storm in which the telephone was disconnected, Lisa successfully makes the phone call, and the hotel staff moves the politician to the targeted suite. The Secret Service checks and clears that room, and the Secretary settles in with his family. After the airplane lands and arrives at the gate, Lisa stabs Rippner in the windpipe with a pen, steals his cell phone and bolts off the plane into the terminal. A girl trips Rippner as he running after Lisa, providing Lisa with more time to escape. Lisa runs through the airport and steals a car so that she can drive to her father's house in order to save him before Rippner calls the hit man. On the way, she makes a cell phone call to the hotel to warn them to evacuate immediately and that the deputy director is a target of an assassination plot. The Secret Service gets the Secretary and his family out of the room just seconds before the Javelin missile is fired and hits the hotel.
At the end of the film, Lisa rushes to her father's house to see if he's safe. She finds the hit-man right outside the front door, and she runs him over with the SUV. Lisa's father stumbles out of the kitchen, shocked at the man who was lying dead in the foyer and tells her that the police are already on their way. While Lisa calls her hotel to see if everything's alright, Jackson Rippner shows up and knocks out her father so that he can deal with her first. He chases her around the partially renovated house with a knife (nod to Jack the Ripper) and finally ends up throwing her down a flight of stairs. Grabbing the knife from where's Lisa's knocked it to with her hockey stick, Lisa crawls down the last few steps to where a gun is lying next to the dead man. She threatens Jackson with the gun but he still tries to get away and she shoots him. He kicks the gun out of her hand and grabs her by the hair when finally, Lisa's father shoots Rippner just as the police arrive, though whether he actually dies is unknown. At the hotel, the Homeland Secretary and the Secret Service are grateful to Lisa and her assistant Cynthia, who also helped save the day by pulling the fire alarm.
[edit] Production
This film was written for Sean Penn and Robin Wright Penn. However, Wes Craven decided to go with younger leads who weren't as recognizable.
[edit] Cast
- Rachel McAdams as Lisa Reisert
- Cillian Murphy as Jackson Rippner
- Brian Cox as Joe Reisert
- Jayma Mays as Cynthia
- Jack Scalia as Charles Keefe
- Colby Donaldson as Body Guard
- Skip Crank as Man on Boat
[edit] Reception
Unlike most thrillers, Red Eye was widely praised prior to the theatrical release, and has since earned an overall rating of 80 on Rotten Tomatoes and 71 on Metacritic.
In South Korea, this film was released as "나이트 플라이트" (Night Flight) to distinguish from the Korean film of the same name, which was released in the same year.[1]
Red Eye also gained high praise from many popular publications, including the Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Roger Ebert in the Chicago-Sun Times. 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. With only a 26 million dollar budget, Red Eye made a total of $145,191,774.
[edit] Possible sequel
Wes Craven spoke about the possibility of a sequel to the movie thriller. According to his interview from Empire Magazine, he said that it is possible to extend Cillian Murphy and Rachel McAdams's characters, because they had such an incredible chemistry. He said that it would be fascinating to have something like Jackson Rippner being held hostage by the government and needing her help for some reason. They would be the oddball duo: they hate each other and eventually become a tight-spun team. He added, although it would be a nice idea, and he confirmed that there was a general interest, it might prove to be a tricky proposition. According to him, Rachel McAdams would be trickiest to assign the role to because she has a manager who is cautious about her career. The script would have to be really terrific to pull off such a risky storyline, and if there is one, Wes Craven might possibly direct the sequel.
