So you don't have to, I went to see "Flightplan" this weekend. Here's a rundown of the film in all it's logic-hating glory --The movie opens with Jodie Foster (or as the kids call her, JoFo) in a subway station with a stunned look like she probably had after realizing she agreed to star in Nell. She perks up when she sees her husband. The scene cuts to her at the morgue. The coroner walks out and tells her that when she's done to punch in her code on the casket (there's a little electronic keypad built into the front) and then call for him. Cutting back and forth between her and her husband going to their apartment, and her in front of the casket with her husband's body in it. In their apartment she asks him not to go upstairs. Considering that later on we find out he died by falling out of a window in their apartment, I think we're supposed to take these scenes as delusions. At the morgue, Jodie freezes up and the coroner comes in and explains by international law a casket can not be transported without it being secured with a code. Then Jodie is in her daughter's room. It's night and a nightlight by the bed is shining hundreds of little airpline shapes throught the room. You see, because this movie takes place on an airplane. In film terms, this is referred to as nineshadowing. A bit of exposition about moving to New York (they're in Germany) and the girl goes to sleep. Jodie Foster walks to her daughter's bedroom window and sees two creepy guys in the apartment across the way studying for their final exam in Advanced Placement How To Look Suspicious. She turns to her daughter, then turns back, and they're gone.
At the airport they're looking at the super-duper double-decker jumbo jet they'll be flying on. The daughter asks if her mother built the plane. Jodie exposits that she built the engines that run the plane. They walk to get on the plane and the daughter asks if she can hold onto her ticket. Inside the plane they are the only ones inside. No crew, no other passengers. When the other passengers start tumbling in the daughter is sitting on the floor playing with a toy airplane, so none of the passengers see her. After everyone is loaded in, the daughter looks out the window to see cargo being loaded onto the plane, including her father's casket. So Jodie Foster leans over to try and confort her and further obscure her from other passengers. This is all like that episode of Fawlty Towers where the staff tries to hide Manuel's rat from the health inspector, only less plausible.They've taken off and most of the passengers are asleep. JoFo tells her daughter that there are some empty rows in the back, and if she wants she can stretch out back there. JoFo then falls to sleep, dreaming of the new diamond studded Oscar-holder the salary from this movie will buy her. Jodie Foster wakes up, and turns to see her daughter's seat is empty. No big deal, she gets up and goes back to the empty rows. Hmmm, not there. She starts checking the bathrooms, the kitchen, the stairs between the decks. This goes on for tens of minutes as she builds to a full-blown panic. Eventually she starts banging on the cockpit door demanding to see the captain. In a close-up we see a gun suddenly pointed at her head. We pull back to see the talkative passenger that was sitting next to her is holding it. It seems he's the flight marshal. We cut to a scene with the whole crew, the air marshal, the captain, and our Ms. Foster. One of the stewardesses (who looks like a redheaded fish) explains that she did a head count and everyone's been accounted for, plus there's no such person in the passenger log. None of the crew claims to have seen the girl. Jodie spouts off all the different places on the plane she could be
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