Red-Eye: A First Class Flight of
Adventure
Wes Craven, the man responsible for reinventing the gore
genre three times with “Last House On The Left,” “A
Nightmare On Elm Street,” and “Scream” has
piloted a less-gruesome gem towards the thriller terminal. “Red-Eye,” his
only non R-Rated thriller (unless you consider Meryl Streep’s
sappy “Music of the Heart” hair-raising), keeps
the adrenalin racing, even without his usual violent tendencies.
Lisa, an upscale hotel manager (Rachel McAdams “The
Notebook”) travels back on a red-eye flight to Miami.
She meets Jackson Rippner (as in Jack the Ripper?), a charming
man (Cillian Murphy, “Batman Begins”) at the
airport and strikes up a friendship. She quickly discovers
though that Jackson is on a terrorist mission with Lisa
and her father as pawns.
Writer Carl Ellsworth, who wrote the first classic episode
of television’s “Buffy, The Vampire Slayer” (season
two’s “Halloween”), takes a simple story,
sets it in a claustrophobic situation and fills the script
with naturalistic dialogue for such an over-the-top plot.
Grounding the tale are the two leads. McAdams, the closest
we have to a movie star in the near future, adds empathy
to a role that could have been a typical woman-in-peril.
Murphy brings a quiet menace as a man who must haunt a
female in a close confinement without being noticed by
a hundred neighbors. The surprise pearl in the cast is
newcomer Jayma Mays as McAdams’ frazzled protégé.
This pixie spirit brings humorous release to the tension.
The only qualm about “Red Eye” can not be
blamed on the filmmakers, but the marketing department
responsible for giving most of the film’s secrets
and twists in the trailer. Though viewing the trailer hasn’t
prevented me from enjoying the film, I recommend covering
your eyes when the trailer runs at the Cineplex.
Brothers Are Grimm For Way Too
Long
There appear to be two faces of director Terry Gilliam
working today. The first crafted the Rubik’s cube
of a mystery “12 Monkeys” and the perplexing
masterpiece “ Brazil.” The other wandered around
the vast set of “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,” leaving
us with a listless, elephant of an epic. With references
to fairy tales and melding of fact and fiction, I prayed
the first Terry Gilliam had directed “The Brother’s
Grimm.” Unfortunately we instead have received another
creaky, slow, humorless comedy in ancient times from Mr.
Gilliam.
Two brothers (Matt Damon and Heath Ledger) travel Europe,
ridding villages of witches and goblins and trolls. Con
artists, who have been staging all the hauntings, Will
and Jacob Grimm discovery a true enchanted forest, one
haunted by a Mirror Queen (Monica Bellucci, “Passion
of the Christ”).
Never has a story with such promise been so squandered.
The real Grimm brothers wrote such legendary tales as Cinderella,
Rapunzel and Hansel and Gretel. Writer Ehren Kruger had
the potential to fantasize the impetus for each tale. However,
while modern classics like Stephen Sondheim’s “Into
The Woods” and Gregory Maguire’s “Wicked” twisted
the tales we know into fresh deconstructed stories, Kruger
merely tosses in references as if they were Mel Brooks
puns. The images of a boy turning to a gingerbread man,
a lost maiden growing glass slippers and a girl in a red
cape being captured by a wolf could have forged a live-action “Shrek.” Instead
nothing jells.
The acting is fine, particularly Peter Stromare (“ Fargo”)
as a clownish Italian officer who becomes obsessed with
the boys, but none of the actors appear to understand Gilliam’s
tone, probably because he himself seems lost.
The effects, which include menacing trees, lycanthropes
and a shattered glass woman, excels where the story fails.
A sluggish misfire, “The Brothers Grimm” required
a wittier writer than the instigator of “Ring 2” and “Scream
3.” Terry Gilliam usually works with top screenwriters
like Richard LaGravenese, Tom Stoppard and his Monty Python
buddies. He should be able to distinguish between a script
that glistens and a script that extinguishes. Grade: Red-Eye:
B+; Brothers Grimm: D+
