Sometimes Bad Things Happen to Good People

Completing my Rachel McAdams weekend was the in the air thriller Red Eye which was just a slight departure from the other film of hers I saw this weekend, Wedding Crashers. In Red Eye, McAdams is a manager at a prestigious hotel who is returning home from her grandmother’s funeral. But back at her hotel, they are preparing for the arrival of the head of Homeland Security with McAdams’ replacement who really doesn’t seem ready for the extra responsibility and brings some good comic relief to a very tense movie.

Playing the antagonist to McAdams is Cillian Murphy last scene in Batman Begins (see my review - A Guy Dresses Up Like a Bat Clearly Has Issues) as the disappointing Scarecrow, granted that wasn’t really his fault as the screenwriters had him as Dr. Crane more than the Scarecrow. But Anyways. Red Eye is really a two person movie with the rest of the cast getting very little screen time but be sure to be on the look out for Beaver Casablancas as Headphones Kid Brother and Colby of Survivor fame as Keefe’s Head Bodyguard and try not to laugh went he makes his hand singles.

Spending most of the time on just the two main characters has its drawback because the lack of screen time to the two people the terrorist are targeting we don’t have enough time to have empathy for them if fact the head Homeland Security comes across as callous early in the film when he is seen giving a speech on a new channel. Plus we never learn why the group was targeting him either. I don’t know why they had Murphy use an American accent when his natural Irish accent would have made more sense. And there is something to say about a movie named Red Eye that doesn’t get exciting until the plane lands.

But even with all those complaints, a lot of credit goes to McAdams and Murphy for being able to hold the interest during the flight when not much could happen. It was just great watching McAdams’ expression change when she realized that the charming guy she just happened to meet in the airport and was seated next to wasn’t lying when he says he job deals with nation overthrows and high profile assassinations. Credit should also go to director Wes Craven who camera work is able to keep us on the edge of our seats. Also it was good how, like many movies of this type with a meek female protagonist, McAdams doesn’t turn into Buffy the Vampire Slayer all of the sudden and everything she does in the film is very believable for her character.

Red Eye gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.