Terror on a plane is a good old standby for a popular suspense thriller. We have seen plenty of hijackers, mad bombers, merciless terrorists. What about a distraught widow whose daughter disappears?

And what about her name being missing from the passenger list? And what if passengers and staff are certain that they never saw the little girl? What would we do if we were the mother? (It helps if, as here, that the mother is an engineer and knows the designs of planes and where to look.)

A cautionary note of lack of realism needs to be made, especially for those who fly often. When the mother starts her cabin search for her daughter, all the toilets are vacant and there is no line for them. This certainly requires an enormous suspension of disbelief!

Despite that, the film works quite well in the suspense department. This is in large part due to Jodie Foster. A couple of years ago, she was menaced in her apartment (again with a daughter) by burglars while she hid in the Panic Room. This time she is a widow accompanying her husband’s body from Berlin to New York. In her grief, she remembers and imagines her husband. She comforts her daughter. She feels that men are prying from a neighbouring building. All this is enough to make us unsure when the on board crisis occurs. Did it happen? Well, we saw it all? But how could there be such a conspiracy against her? And when she goes over the top demanding the plane be searched, upsetting the passengers, challenging the crew, well Jodie Foster is so convincing an actress that we realise she must have imagined it all. But did she? And what happens when the plane lands?

Obviously it is far-fetched (we hope) and to criticise it for lack of realism is to have missed the point about this kind of thriller. It’s what if? rather than what really happens.

Sean Bean is the pilot who has to make the choices. Peter Sarsgaard is the air marshall required on flights after September 11th. Actually, the title gives away the intensity of the plot more than we might realise!

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