An interesting failure

Even though Jodie Foster is not anymore really one of the major leading ladies, I still have a weak spot for her so I always try to watch her more recent movies when I get the opportunity. This time, she showed up in a thriller and, at first, the whole thing was actually pretty intriguing. Indeed, in my opinion, the set-up was great. Basically, you have this woman who gets on a plane with her kid but then, she falls asleep and when she wakes up, the kid is gone. She looks for her child but when asking for help, everybody says she came on the plane alone and might be hallucinating... It was a great concept and, for a while, I got the impression I might be watching a rather smart and insightful psychological thriller. Unfortunately, the makers basically chickened out as they were not able to develop this set-up. Instead, they provided this very lame twist ending (it must be one of the most infuriating things in movie history… Those stupid twist endings at the end of every average Hollywood thriller…) and they pretty much managed to destroy all the great things built before. Basically, they dropped the whole psychological aspect of the movie, the only thing that made this feature really stood out from the rest. Indeed, the explanation provided is that she was right all along! There was indeed some kind of lame conspiracy… To conclude, if you remove the last awful 20 minutes, the rest of the movie is actually pretty decent and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

6/10