Passengers – DVD Review

By Frankie Dees May 27, 2009, 12:30 GMT

While helping a handful of plane crash survivors cope with their grief, young psychologist Claire Summers (2008 Best Actress, Oscar® nominee Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married) begins to uncover conflicting accounts of the accident. At first, Claire believes that trauma is behind her patients\' wildly different stories - until the survivors mysteriously begin disappearing one by one. Now Eric (Patrick Wilson, Lakeview Terrace), a surviving passenger she has grown dangerously ...more

When you sit down to watch ‘Passengers’, you might get a distinct feeling of déjà vu - and no, not that Denzel Washington pic, but that feeling that you’ve seen this all before. You have.

By the time the credits roll, ‘Passengers’ will be a blatantly obvious, if well-acted, dupe of another film that if I reveal would ruin the central surprise. 

And throwing a little of TV’s “Lost’ in there for good measure, director Rodrigo Garcia makes a decided step back from arthouse faves ‘Nine Lives’ and ‘Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her’ to helm Ronnie Christensen’s armchair quarterbacked script. 

With a less interesting cast, this film would be completely straight to video fare (which, in fact, it kinda is despite a short contractually-obligated run in theaters). But we get Anne Hathaway fresh off her nomination for ‘Rachel Getting Married’ and Patrick Wilson coming off of ‘Watchmen’ with David Morse, Andre Braugher and Dianne Wiest throwing in some supporting work that at least makes this heavy-handed offering somewhat watchable. 

After a commercial airline crash, only five passengers seemed to survive and psychologist Claire (Anne Hathaway) is assigned to them from her boss (Andre Braugher) who checks in on her progress every so often. Four of the five are understandably traumatized and sob and connect at the group therapy sessions. 

But one passenger Eric (Patrick Wilson) has taken the crash as a new lease on life and refuses Claire’s invitations to the group therapy sessions and playfully sidesteps any psychologically advances from Claire during her house visits. Eric’s careless attitude eventually wins over Claire and she risks her job by falling into a relationship with him. 

But something is amiss as a strange man keeps popping up outside her window, an antagonistic airline employee (David Morse) is keeping close tabs on her and some bizarre occurrences surround Eric like a repeat appearance of the same barking dog. What’s really the story behind these survivors?

By the time the climax rolls around you may not care, but the filmmakers try hard to present an existential puzzle of a film that will provoke repeat viewings to fit the pieces in place. Similar in tone to Will Smith’s recent ‘Seven Pounds’ which also takes it’s sweet time going and mistakes a plodding, ethereal pace for fascinating ambiguity. 

The film is presented in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen and looks fine. Using a mostly washed-out palette with equally subdued Canadian metro locations, the gets a pass both visually and aurally but there’s nothing to excite here.

Special Features include ‘Deleted Scenes’, an audio commentary from director Rodrigo Garcia and Patrick Wilson that is a chatty, mostly informal affair, ‘Analysis of a Plane Crash’ is a quick look at the well-done and disturbing crash sequence and ‘In the Night Sky’, a 23-minute making of with interviews and behind the scenes footage.

A commendable if now requisite special features package although the film’s theatrical trailer is not included. 

Depending on the mood, you can leave the film thinking it’s a muted, slightly effective ‘Twilight Zone’ episode or right it off completely as bone-headed mysticism with a ‘twist’ ending that’s been done to, ahem, death. The cast kept me somewhat involved but it’s clear why the studio decided to not waste much money on a theatrical campaign. 

Passengers is now available at Amazon. As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.