Flightplan

This article is about the 2005 film. For the aeronautical term, see Flight plan.

Flightplan
Directed by	Robert Schwentke
Produced by	Robert DeNozzi Charles J. D. Schlissel Brian Grazer
Written by	Peter A. Dowling Billy Ray
Starring	Jodie Foster Peter Sarsgaard Erika Christensen Kate Beahan Greta Scacchi and Sean Bean
Music by	James Horner
Cinematography	Florian Ballhaus
Editing by	Thom Noble
Studio	Imagine Entertainment
Distributed by	Touchstone Pictures
Release date(s)	September 22, 2005 (2005-09-22) United States September 23, 2005 (2005-09-23)
Running time	98 minutes
Country	Germany United States
Language	English, German
Budget	$50 million
Box office	$223,387,299

Flightplan is a 2005 thriller film directed by Robert Schwentke and starring Jodie Foster, Peter Sarsgaard, Erika Christensen, Kate Beahan, Greta Scacchi, and Sean Bean. It was released in North America on September 23, 2005.

Plot

Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster) is a propulsion engineer based in Berlin, Germany. Her husband David (John Benjamin Hickey) died from falling off the roof of their apartment building, and now Kyle and her six year-old daughter Julia (Marlene Lawston) are flying home to Long Island to bury him and stay with Kyle's parents. They fly aboard a passenger aircraft, an Elgin 474, which Kyle helped design. After falling asleep for a few hours, Kyle wakes to find that Julia is missing. After trying to remain calm at first, she begins to panic, and Captain Marcus Rich (Sean Bean) is forced to conduct a search. Kyle walks the aisles, questioning people, but none of her fellow passengers remember having seen her daughter. One of the flight attendants calls in to the airport they just departed from and, shockingly, the gate attendant says that they have no record of Julia boarding the flight. In addition, according to the passenger manifest, Julia's seat is registered empty. When Kyle checks for Julia's boarding pass, it is missing.

Marcus refuses to allow the cargo hold to be searched because the searchers could be hurt if the plane shifted due to turbulence. Both Marcus and the other crew members suspect that Kyle has become unhinged by her husband's recent death, and has imagined bringing her daughter aboard. One flight attendant Stephanie (Kate Beahan) is exceptionally unsympathetic. Faced with the crew's increasing skepticism regarding her daughter's existence, Kyle becomes more and more desperate. Because of her increasingly erratic, panicked behavior, air marshal Gene Carson (Peter Sarsgaard) is ordered by Marcus to guard and handcuff her.

Later on, Marcus receives a wire from the hospital in Berlin. It says that Julia was with her father when he fell off the roof, and she also died of internal injuries. Kyle furiously denies that, consistently claiming that she brought Julia aboard. The crew now believes she is delusional and she is brought back to her seat by Air Marshal Carson. A therapist (Greta Scacchi) on board tries to console her, causing Kyle for a moment to doubt her own sanity until she notices that a heart Julia had drawn earlier on the window next to her seat is real. Kyle is emboldened and convinces the therapist to let her use the bathroom. Instead of doing so, she climbs into the upper compartment and sabotages the aircraft's electronics, deploying the oxygen masks and interrupting lighting. Some passengers brawl with the Arab passengers, presuming them to be terrorists. She uses the chaos to take an elevator to the lower freight deck. She desperately searches for Julia and finally opens her husband's casket to which she emotionally breaks down. Carson finds her, puts her in handcuffs and escorts her back.

Kyle makes a final plea to Carson that she needs to search the plane upon landing. Carson considers for a moment, then "goes to speak to the captain", against flight attendant Stephanie's command (they are landing), leaving the audience to momentarily believe he is sympathetic. Instead, he sneaks back into the freight deck to remove two small explosives and a detonator concealed in David's casket. He then climbs down to a part of the avionics section, revealing Julia is sleeping (presumably drugged) with her coat and backpack that no one could find. He attaches the explosives to the side of the platform and arms them. At this point, it is revealed that Carson, Stephanie, and the coroner in Berlin (Christian Berkel) are the antagonists and part of a conspiracy. Carson tells the captain that Kyle is a hijacker and is threatening to blow up the aircraft with explosives hidden in the un-X-rayed casket unless the airline transfers $50,000,000 into a bank account. It is revealed that the conspirators killed Kyle's husband and abducted Julia in order to frame Kyle. Carson tells an unnerved Stephanie that he intends to blow up the aircraft's avionics section, killing the unconscious Julia, and leave Kyle dead with the detonator in her hand.

After making an emergency landing at Goose Bay Airport in Goose Bay, Labrador, Canada, the passengers exit the aircraft as the tarmac is surrounded by U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents. As the captain is leaving, Kyle runs to speak to him with Carson in tow. The captain demands she give up her charade, revealing Carson's deception. Quickly playing the role of hijacker, Kyle demands that Carson stay on board and the crew disembark.

As soon as the plane's door closes, Kyle knocks Carson unconscious with a fire extinguisher, handcuffs him to a rail, and takes the detonator from his pocket. Stephanie comes out of hiding and Kyle screams "she's in avionics isn't she?" Carson quickly regains consciousness and fires at Kyle with a concealed gun, sending her running. He chases after Kyle shooting, until she locks herself in the cockpit. He reveals his conspiracy to talk her out. She opens a hatch door to the upper level and throws out a binder to fool him. Carson hears the upstairs thud and leaves. Kyle exits and encounters a guilt-ridden Stephanie. Kyle talks her down and punches her out. Stephanie panics and flees the plane, abandoning Carson who looks on.

Kyle during this time searches avionics and finally finds the unconscious Julia. Carson soon follows, and while searching, tells her how he gagged and dumped her daughter into the food bin. He disparages the people aboard who would never care enough to notice. Carson points his gun to where Julia lay before, but they're not there. He turns around and sees Kyle carrying Julia, escaping through a small door with the detonator in hand. Carson shoots at her as she closes the door. She detonates the explosives, killing Carson. The compartment she and Julia hid in was non-combustible^{[citation needed]}, which keeps them safe. Kyle, carrying Julia, exits via a cargo door. Everyone watches in shock and amazement as Kyle carries her daughter out onto the tarmac.

Later in the passenger waiting section of the airport, Marcus apologizes to a seated Kyle holding Julia in her arms. Stephanie is led away by FBI agents and more agents approach Kyle, asking her to identify the morgue director in Berlin who has been detained. She carries Julia still unconscious through the crowd of passengers, silently redeeming herself. One of the Arab passengers named Obaid (Michael Irby) helps pick up her bag, a symbolic act of respect and forgiveness^{[citation needed]}. Before loading her daughter into a van to take them away, Julia wakes up and sleepily asks "Are we there yet?" as they drive away.

Cast

• Jodie Foster as Kyle Pratt
• Peter Sarsgaard as Gene Carson
• Erika Christensen as Fiona
• Kate Beahan as Stephanie
• Greta Scacchi as Lisa
• Sean Bean as Captain Marcus Rich
• Michael Irby as Obaid
• Assaf Cohen as Ahmed
• Shane Edelman as Mr. Loud
• Mary Gallagher as Mrs. Loud
• Haley Ramm as Brittany Loud
• Forrest Landis as Rhett Loud
• Fred Tungulsten as Jordan
• Jana Kolesarova as Claudia
• Brent Sexton as Elias
• Marlene Lawston as Julia Pratt
• Judith Scott as Estella
• Tonje Larsgard as Flight Attendant
• Amanda Brooks as Irene
• Christian Berkel as Mortuary Director
• John Benjamin Hickey as David
• Matt Bomer as Eric
• Gavin Grazer as FBI Agent
• Christopher Gartin as Mike
• Bess Wohl as Katerina
• Kirk B.R. Woller as Grunick
• Stephanie Faracy as Anna
• Cooper Thornton as West
• Jesse Burch as Row 19 Male Passenger
• Drake Johnston as Main Deck Kid
• Lois Hall as Main Deck Grandma
• Dirk Vahle as Helicopter Pilot
• David Farkas as Steward

Aircraft used

The aircraft used in this film was a fictional E-474. The interior design and layout is similar to an actual airplane, the Airbus A380. In the DVD release, however, it is noted that the amount of dead space within the cabin, cargo and avionic areas do not reflect the actual amount of dead space within any aircraft. Of special note in the movie is the avionics computer seen below the cockpit and the clean space between the upper deck passenger areas and the fuselage.

Box office and reaction

Flightplan grossed $89,602,378 at the box office and over $223,000,000 worldwide. It also grossed $79,270,000 on DVD rentals. The movie was met with mixed reviews from critics. It has a 38% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. In his review Roger Ebert described the film as 'a frightening thriller with an airtight plot', but James Berardinelli saw it as plotwise 'going into a tailspin from which it never recovers.'

The Association of Professional Flight Attendants called for an official boycott of the film, which they say depicts flight attendants as rude, uncaring, indifferent, and even one as a "terrorist."

Soundtrack

The score of the movie was released September 20, 2005, on Hollywood Records. The music was composed and conducted by James Horner and the disc contains 8 tracks.

Tracklist:

1. "Leaving Berlin"
2. "Missing Child"
3. "The Search"
4. "So Vulnerable"
5. "Creating Panic"
6. "Opening the Casket"
7. "Carson's Plan"
8. "Mother and Child"

Total Play Time: 50:36

Additional information

• The DVD release of this movie is one of the few protected with Sony DADC's ARccOS copy protection.

External links

• Official site
• Film trailer at Apple.com
• Flightplan at the Internet Movie Database
• Flightplan at AllRovi
• Flightplan at the TCM Movie Database
• Flightplan at Rotten Tomatoes
• Flightplan at Box Office Mojo