Movie: Flight Plan (S, A)

Of course, I had to see Flight Plan for the wonderful Sean Bean. Plus, I have really liked Jodie Foster ever since I saw Sommersby. Anyhow, the premise is that an airplane designer is traveling on an airplane she helped develop and her daughter disappears mid-flight. To make things more confusing, the airplane crew claim she wasn't on the manifest and that they haven't seen her daughter at all. The movie maintains a frantic pace to correspond with the mom's panic and keeps the audience in suspense for just the right amount before we find out what is happening and wait to see how it will be resolved. It also subtly played with the audience assumptions about which passengers might be a threat in the post-9/11 world.

JF's character was awesome: strong yet wounded and Very, Very Smart. She figured things out quickly and took decisive action to find and to protect her daughter. Sean Bean plays the pilot, struggling to balance the needs of the group with the needs of this frantic mother. Grade: A-