Long on suspense and excitement

The film Red Eye is short at one hour and 15 minutes. However, it is long on suspense and excitement.

What makes it even seem shorter is the fact that there is always something going on the movie (it‘s not boring in other words) and no viewing time is wasted at all. You are also well advised to empty your bladder first before you sit down to watch the film and refrain from taking water or soda so that you don’t go to the bathroom and miss important scenes in the film.

Red Eye actually takes place in just a matter of hours – the entire late night up to morning at the most. Early on, we are introduced to the main character of the film, played by Rachel McAdams, who is cast as a very efficient hotel manager in Florida. Even if she is out-of-town to bury a beloved grandmother, you can still count on her to do trouble-shooting.

Catching a plane home and taking the red eye (the early morning flight – when you have to wake up before dawn still red-eyed – she befriends at the airport a charming gentleman, played by Cillian Murphy. But instead of the dream boy that she thought he was, he turns out to be the worst nightmare of her life.

To her everlasting horror, she discovers that he is part of a hit squad out to eliminate an important US government official who is checking into her hotel. Now, Cillian wants McAdams to move the government official to a room at the hotel where Mr. Secretary can become an easier target. If she doesn’t do as told, somebody is waiting outside her home to finish off her unsuspecting father.

The rest of the film shows us how McAdams tries everything humanly possible to get out of that really tight situation that you wouldn’t want to happen even to your worst enemy.

As a suspense film, Red Eye succeeds because Wes Craven’s storytelling is airtight. No loopholes here. When we watch a movie, don‘t we sometimes (actually all the time) ask why the lead character didn’t do this – didn’t do that? In the case of Rachel McAdams, you have to realize that she is really left without much choice – and given such a stressful situation, you can’t really think straight all the time (although she often did – thanks to the stress management seminars she was said to have taken as part of her job at the hotel).

Wes Craven also puts in a lot of suspenseful elements in the film that really work and put the viewers at the edge of their seats. Most of the situations our heroine goes through are really gripping. And it was so wise of Craven to have set a great part of the film inside an airplane where the scenario becomes so claustrophobic, you can’t help but feel the anguish of the lead character. While watching Red Eye, in fact, I suddenly remembered Audrey Hepburn’s blind character in Wait Until Dark because she also suffered a lot in the hands of psychotic gangster Alan Arkin in that 1967 classic suspense-thriller. But then, there are so many things happening in Red Eye, that I had to shrug poor Ms. Hepburn off my mind that time and I didn’t remember the late great actress again until now.

Rachel McAdams may not be Audrey Hepburn, but she definitely is outstanding as the hapless victim of Cillian Murphy in Red Eye. In the comedy Wedding Crashers just a month ago, I remember also giving her a very positive review. Her performance in Red Eye has affirmed all the more the fact that she is one of the better young actresses today in Hollywood.

British actor Cillian Murphy (Batman Begins, 28 Days) also delivers a good acting job in Red Eye. His character is so hateful, you just want to punch him in the nose and rescue poor Ms. McAdams from his evil clutches. When it comes to role-playing, he is very convincing and I hope he ends up getting selected as James Bond since he is one of the actors being considered to replace Pierce Brosnan.

There is also a secondary character who also does very well in the movie: Jayma Mays, the panicky hotel employee manning the front desk. Her scene-stealing scenes in the film’s climax provide the much-needed relief for the viewer after all those chilling moments in this very effective suspense-thriller.

Go watch Red Eye and witness some really suspenseful scenes on the big screen. But don‘t expect it to be as scary as the recent events in the local political scene.