Having heard some good things about this film and having had a friend loan me the dvd -- I watched it. Granted, psychological thrillers just aren’t my genre, so my review is no doubt already biased.

Establishing a well-earned sense of errieness, the film progresses from Berlin streets to the inside of an aircraft where it lives for the remainder of the duration. Despite the cramped “one-set” location, filmmakers (and graphic artists no doubt) do a fine job of keeping things interesting. But the bickering back and forth between Foster and Peter Sarsgaard becomes tiresome. And the erriness dissipates without anything as interesting to replace it. Actually, for a second there, tables turn in a rather clever way setting the viewer up for what looks like a ripe and ready intriguing chess match of the minds. But that chess match plays out disappointingly fast and the film resolves itself with such swiftness and great ease, that the viewers are left without much of a payoff for all that initial tension.

While Sean Bean (the Captain) and Foster give strong performances. Sarsgaard who plays the Air Marshal seems a bit of a miscast, I kept wanting it to be Tommy Lee Jones. Overall, there’s just not much here. I appreciate the depiction of the will of a bereaved mother, but what else is there of emotional worth here?

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