Red Eye (2005 American film)
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| Red Eye | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by | Wes Craven |
| Written by | Story: Carl Ellsworth Dan Foos Screenplay: Carl Ellsworth |
| Produced by | Chris Bender Marianne Maddalena |
| Starring | Rachel McAdams Cillian Murphy Brian Cox |
| Cinematography | Robert D. Yeoman |
| Edited by | Patrick Lussier Stuart Levy |
| Music by | Marco Beltrami |
| Distributed by | DreamWorks Pictures |
Release date | August 19, 2005 |
Running time | 85 minutes |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $26,000,000 |
| Box office | $95,577,774 |
Red Eye is a 2005 thriller film directed by Wes Craven and starring Rachel McAdams as a hotel manager ensnared in an assassination plot by a terrorist (Cillian Murphy) while aboard a red eye flight to Miami. The film score was composed and conducted by Marco Beltrami.
Plot
Hotel manager Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams) fears flying, and following her grandmother's funeral in Dallas, Texas, she takes a night flight home to Miami, Florida. While in the check-in line, she meets the handsome and charming Jackson Rippner (Cillian Murphy). When the flight is delayed, they share a drink at the airport bar.
When boarding her plane, Lisa is pleasantly surprised that her seat is next to Rippner's. Shortly after the plane takes off, however, he reveals that he is a terrorist operative working for a group intending to assassinate the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Charles Keefe (Jack Scalia) and his family. Lisa is instrumental to their plan because she is the acting manager at the Lux Atlantic Hotel where the Keefe family is staying. If she refuses to cooperate, Rippner will deploy a hitman to kill her father, Joe (Brian Cox) at his home in Miami. Lisa is unable to warn anyone about the plot without jeopardizing her father's safety, and the longer she waits, the harder it will become to prevent the murders.
She desperately attempts to devise a plan to stop the assassination and save her father. When an elderly woman stops by to talk about the book Lisa gave her while in line, Lisa writes a warning inside before returning it to her. However, Rippner discovers what Lisa did and knocks her unconscious and retrieves the book before the message is found. Lisa later goes into the bathroom and writes a warning on the mirror with soap, but Rippner is waiting outside, and, seeing the message, shoves her back in.
Lisa begs Rippner not to kill her father, and he warns about gambling with her father's life. Noticing a scar above Lisa's breast, he asks about its history. Lisa refuses to answer, and Rippner starts choking her for not being honest with him when he had been brutally honest with her. After releasing her, he wipes the mirror.
The assassination plan is to launch a missile at the hotel from a small yacht moored in the nearby harbor. However, the Deputy Secretary always prefers a particular suite, one facing the city (away from the harbor). To execute the assassination, Rippner forces Lisa to phone the hotel and order the staff to change the reservation from Room 3825 to a particular suite (Suite 4080) facing the harbor.
After storm turbulence temporarily disconnects the airphone service, Lisa successfully calls her assistant, Cynthia (Jayma Mays), and has her move the politician to the targeted suite. Rippner tells Lisa her father will be safe only after Rippner receives confirmation that the Keefes are dead. Meanwhile, the Secret Service, top agent played by Colby Donaldson (of Survivor fame), checks and clears the suite, and the Secretary settles in with his family; the Coast Guard has also checked out the yacht and found nothing suspicious (the missile is hidden underwater).
After the airplane lands and taxies to the gate, Lisa tells Rippner that she was scarred by a man who raped her at knifepoint, and that she has sworn to never let it happen again; she then stabs Rippner in the throat with a pen, grabs his cell phone, and bolts off the plane into the terminal. Lisa runs through the airport, narrowly escaping both airport security and Rippner. She steals an SUV and uses the cell phone to call Cynthia and warn her to evacuate the hotel immediately and that the deputy director is an assassination target. The Secret Service removes the Secretary and his family from the room seconds before the Javelin missile hits the hotel. Lisa then calls her father to warn him about the hitman, but the cell phone battery dies.
Lisa rushes to Joe's house and finds the hitman on the porch, about to enter and kill her father. She rams the hitman with the SUV, killing him and crashing through the front door. Joe stumbles in from the kitchen, stunned; he tells Lisa the police are on their way.
While Lisa calls the hotel to see if everything is alright, Rippner arrives, knocking Joe unconscious. Rippner chases Lisa through the house with a knife, eventually throwing her down the staircase. Lisa crawls to where the dead hitman's gun was dropped and threatens Rippner. When he attempts to escape, Lisa shoots and wounds him. He knocks the gun from her hand and is about to kill her when Joe shoots him, just as the police arrive.
At the hotel, the Homeland Secretary and the Secret Service express their gratitude to Lisa and her assistant Cynthia, who also helped save them by pulling the fire alarm and rushing to their suite to warn them. Lisa and Cynthia then head for a bar for some drinks to celebrate.
Cast
- Rachel McAdams as Lisa Reisert
- Cillian Murphy as Jackson Rippner
- Brian Cox as Joe Reisert
- Jack Scalia as Charlie Keefe
- Jayma Mays as Cynthia
- Colby Donaldson as Head Secret Service Agent
Production
This film was written for Sean and Robin Wright Penn. Craven decided to go with younger leads who weren't as recognizable, however. Winona Ryder was also considered for playing the part that eventually went to McAdams.
Because of Murphy's Irish accent, Craven was unsure if he would be able to play Jackson Rippner, since the character was specifically written as an American.[1]
This is Murphy's second role of 2005 as a villain, the first being Dr. Jonathan Crane / The Scarecrow in Batman Begins.
Reception
Red Eye was widely praised prior to the theatrical release, and has since earned an overall rating of 79% on Rotten Tomatoes and 71 on Metacritic.
Red Eye also gained high praise from many publications, including The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and the Chicago Sun-Times.
Box office
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.
References
- ^ Craven, Wes. "Making Red Eye" (Red Eye (DVD special features)).