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. The movie was loosely based on the 1938 mystery film The Lady Vanishes. It was released in North America on September 23, 2005.

Plot

Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster) is an engineer based in Berlin. Her husband David (John Benjamin Hickey) died from a fall off the roof of their building. Kyle and her six year-old daughter Julia (Marlene Lawston) are flying to Long Island to bury him. They fly aboard a passenger aircraft which Kyle helped design. After falling asleep, Kyle wakes to find that Julia is missing. She begins to panic, and Captain Marcus Rich (Sean Bean) is forced to conduct a search. None of the passengers remember seeing her daughter. A flight attendant calls the airport from which they just departed and the gate attendant says they have no record of Julia boarding the flight. According to the passenger manifest, Julia's seat is registered empty. When Kyle checks for Julia's boarding pass, it is missing.

Marcus and the other crew members suspect that Kyle has become unhinged by her husband's 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 marshall Gene Carson (Peter Sarsgaard) is ordered to guard and handcuff her.

Marcus receives a wire from the hospital in Berlin that says Julia was with her father when he fell off the roof and also died of internal injuries. Kyle furiously denies it. The crew believes she is delusional. A therapist (Greta Scacchi) on board tries to console her, causing Kyle 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. 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." He sneaks back into the freight deck to remove two explosives and a detonator concealed in David's casket, then climbs down to the avionics section, revealing Julia who is sleeping (presumably drugged). He attaches the explosives to the side of the platform. At this point, it is revealed that Carson, Stephanie, and the coroner in Berlin (Christian Berkel) are part of a conspiracy. Carson tells the captain that Kyle is a hijacker and is threatening to blow up the aircraft unless the airline transfers $50,000,000 into a bank account. 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, 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. Kyle demands that Carson stay on board and the crew disembark.

As soon as the plane's door closes, Kyle knocks Carson unconscious, handcuffs him to a rail, and takes the detonator from his pocket. Stephanie comes out of hiding. Carson 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. 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. Stephanie panics and flees the plane.

Kyle searches avionics and 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, with the detonator in hand. Carson shoots at her as she closes the door. She detonates the explosives, killing Carson. Everyone watches in shock and amazement as Kyle carries her daughter out onto the tarmac.

Later, Marcus apologizes to a seated Kyle holding Julia in her arms. Stephanie is led away by FBI agents. She carries Julia still unconscious through the crowd of passengers. 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