Red Eye

Red Eye (Director: Wes Craven)

Craven flick #2 of the year, after the awful Cursed. Robert Rodriguez turned the trick earlier this year. Craven will not be the last. Screenwriter Carl Ellsworth came up with the story along with Dan Foos. This is their first movie credit.

After the Worst-10-worthy Cursed, Craven attempts a closed-space thriller. Four of his last five films were written by Kevin Williamson, and I think he wanted to get away from the Miramax grind as well. Have a fresh start. Go to Dreamworks, make a movie that's a cousin of his general horror fare, and see what happens.

The blazing Rachel McAdams plays Lisa Reisert, a hotel clerk who has left home to attend her grandmother's funeral, and is trying to get back home to Miami where she can resume her normal life. At the airport, she runs into Jack Rippner (Cillian Murphy, who comes up with his second excellent creepy performance of the summer), and they board a plane just happening to sit next to each other. As the great trailer for this movie shows, it seems like one of those Forces of Nature type of movies where romance seems to be blooming between two strangers--but then all of the sudden the situation turns dire. Seems as though Jack has plans for Lisa, and if she doesn't play ball then he will give the order to kill her dad (Brian Cox).

This is a surprisingly quick and tense thriller, one that you could pick up at any point in the story and just get involved. And Craven, who likes a good camera trick now and then, pulls a couple off in this movie. I've always got the sense that, even though I don't like most of his movies, he's better than the material--he's usually unable to pull it off. Here, we have a nice, brisk story kind of like last year's underseen Cellular, where the rules are simple, the plot uncomplicated, and most of all...fun. If you haven't fallen in love with McAdams, well...good...less competition for me. After this year, Murphy is going to be on the path to stardom.

I never thought mid-August would come up with two good movies...I'm not exactly sure about Valiant yet...but maybe...Anyway, this is Craven's best since the original Scream.