Wes Craven's RED EYE, while being a fair example of a Hitchcockian thriller, actually turns out to be an entirely new sub-genre... the "chick" thriller.
Though suspense films have had their share of heroines (Jamie Lee Curtis in HALLOWEEN and Jodie Foster in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, for example), the addition of modern "chick lit" characteristics is a new angle. "Chick-lit" stories tend to follow young career women through their loves and struggles (see BRIDGET JONES' DIARY and SEX IN THE CITY). They often have kooky girl friends and drink cocktails with names like "Bay Breeze". They're also about female freedom and empowerment.
In RED EYE, we meet Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams) and she is about to fight tooth and nail for her freedom. Lisa is an accommodating young woman who runs Miami's premiere hotel for the rich and powerful. She is quite adept at customer relations and making everyone happy. This quality doesn't come off as strength so much as a desire to avoid conflict. Lisa's had enough of that.
And she's about to get more. While taking the "red-eye" back to Miami, Lisa meets the very charming Jackson (Cillian Murphy). Their meeting has all the cute coincidence of a perfect romance especially when the two find they are seated together on the late flight.
The coincidence turns out to have a sinister purpose. Jackson, like Lisa, is also a manager. His job is to manage Lisa into co-operating in the assassination of Charles Keefe (Jack Scalia), the hard-liner chief of Homeland Security. Lisa must do as Jackson says or her father (an under-utilized Brian Cox) dies!
Though the plot of RED EYE involves terrorists and heads of Homeland Security, these are all mere McGuffins (to borrow another Hitchcockian phrase). Lisa Reisert is facing a horror that plagues far too many women... male violence. While it isn't a literal rape that she suffers at 30,000 feet, Lisa is violated all the same.
Lisa, however, has already been traumatized once. A mysterious scar on her chest testifies to this. Rachel McAdams (THE NOTEBOOK, WEDDING CRASHERS) plays the timidity of a former victim without resorting to "girl in peril" hysterics. Her reactions attract our sympathies immediately. What she also plays well is the determination of a woman who has sworn never to be victimized again. The risks she takes are based on strength and intelligence. These are traits screenwriter Carl Ellsworth has experience with having written for two other powerful women, "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" and "Xena: Warrior Princess". It is to McAdams' and Craven's credit, though, that Lisa feels like an actual person in crisis and not a super
The scenes on the plane are equally effective games of suspense (even if the tension seems to stay on the same level throughout). While the performance of Cillian Murphy (28 DAYS LATER, BATMAN BEGINS) may not be as well rounded as McAdams', he brings all the necessary creepiness to the monster of this film. Wes Craven's camera is also an active contributor to the
Until the end. Sadly, RED EYE loses its intelligent design (a phrase appropriate to film reviews, not biology classrooms) to a standard issue climax race against the ticking clock (Low cell phone batteries? We're still using that old chestnut?). Eventually the film even betrays its "chick thriller" empowerment code and at a crucial moment in Lisa's journey. I guess that's what you get for letting men do a woman's job.
Regardless of its tendency to follow emotional beats over logical ones, RED EYE is an audience pleaser, especially with the women in the audience. If it's successful at the box office, we may find more "chick thrillers" coming to theatres soon.
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