Flightplan -- 2005 -- PG-13

This thriller with Kyle (Jodie Foster) begins grimly with her identifying her husband's body before it is interred for a flight to the United States to be buried. Her and her daughter are to accompany him on the plane ride home, and ironically, the airplane she is taking is one she helped to design as an aeronautical engineer.

During the flight, she and her daughter grab a couple of back seats to rest during the trip, and when she wakes up, her daughter is gone. Not only is her daughter gone, but since she entered the plan with her daughter wrapped up in her coat (the little girl was scared), no one remembers her daughter existing at all. As mothers do, she raises a huge stink about her daughter being missing until she is understandably detained.

It's frustration and confusion during the first half to two-thirds of this film as she frantically tries to convince everyone that she has a daughter and the girl is missing. The character is wonderfully portrayed and we feel every emotion she goes through in the process. This film is definitely a star vehicle as every other character in the film pales in comparison to the lead.

Once the big reveal comes and everything else plays out, it does so in a fairly interesting fashion, though I had concerns about Kyle's apparent munitions knowledge and our "villain spills the plot to the heroine" bit at the third act break. It's an ending that pales in comparison to the tension of the rest of the film, but delivers a fairly satisfying conclusion and even retribution to our heroine.

So it's a good film that gives us a nice reversal and great tension, and it's a lot better than some of the other films that have come out recently.