Red Eye film: Encyclopedia II - Red Eye film - Plot summary

Red Eye film - Plot summary

Tagline: Fear Takes Flight

Lisa Reisert (played by Rachel McAdams) has a fear of flying, and after attending her grandmother's funeral in Dallas, she has to take a night flight (called a red-eye flight, hence the movie title) to Miami. She meets Jackson Rippner (played by Cillian Murphy), whom she initially finds charming. After the plane has taken off, however, Rippner reveals that he is an operative who intends to assassinate the Secretary of Homeland Security, and Lisa is instrumental in his plans. If she refuses to cooperate, then Rippner will prompt a hit-man to kill her father. Reisert has no way of getting help without jeopardizing her father's safety, and the longer she waits, the harder it will be to prevent the murder.

The plan is to use a portable missile launcher from a boat in a nearby harbor and fire it at the hotel. The problem is that the Director of Homeland Security likes to stay in a different suite, one that faces the city (away from the harbor). In order to assassinate him, Rippner must force Lisa, who is the manager of that hotel, to make a phone call from the airplane and order the hotel staff to change his reservation to a particular suite that faces the harbor. If she doesn't cooperate with Rippner, he will have her father murdered by a hit-man who is waiting just outside her father's house in Florida.

She makes the phone call, and the hotel staff moves the politician to the targeted suite. The Secret Service checks and clears that room, and the Secretary settles in with his family. After the airplane lands and arrives at the gate, Lisa stabs Rippner in the voicebox with a pen and bolts off the plane. She runs through the airport and takes a 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee SUV to her father's house. On the way, she makes a cell phone call to the hotel to warn them to evacuate immediately. The Secret Services gets the Secretary and his family out of the room just seconds before the missile is fired and hits the hotel.

At the end of the film, Lisa rushes to her father's house to see if he's safe. She finds the hit-man right outside the front door, and she runs him over with the SUV. Just when she thought she has saved the day and everyone is safe, Rippner shows up in the house and battles it out with her. Finally, Lisa's father shoots Rippner just as the police arrive, though whether he actually dies is unknown. At the hotel, the Homeland Secretary and the Secret Service are grateful to Lisa and her assistant at the hotel, who also helped save the day by pulling the fire alarm.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Plot summary", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki