Passengers (2008)
Review by Noel
Perhaps to capitalize on the growing buzz of star Anne Hathaway’s performance in Rachel Getting Married (a performance she would receive an Oscar Nomination for), Sony Pictures limited-released the “eerie thriller” Passengers over the Halloween weekend to handful of theaters, where it managed to make just over a quarter of a million dollars, which proportionately, is less than minimum wage to the suits with expense accounts.
With an above average cast for this type of movie (Oscar winner Dianne Weist, Emmy Winner Andre Braugher, outstanding character actor David Morse, Identity and Girl, Interrupted’s Clea Duvall), studio backed production values, and a lead on the brink of A-list credibility, one wonders why Passengers failed to make a blip on the box-office radar.
I wondered that too…until I saw the movie.
Be glad that you did and will pass on Passengers now that it’s out on DVD. Is it an absolutely horrible movie? Not at all, you could think of 15 worse movies off the top of your head. But I’m guessing if you’re any kind of fan of thrillers of this type, then you’ve already seen (and no doubt own), much better movies like it. Take one of your favorites off the shelf and watch it again. You’ll have a better time revisiting them than you will this bland excuse for a thriller (doesn’t a thriller, by definition, need to have…thrills?).
The movie opens with a horrible plane crash (as opposed to a benign and fluffy one) into a beach. There are a handful of survivors walking around in a daze like zombies, feeling the full force of the shock, barely aware of their own extremities let alone each other.
Awakened by the standard phone call in the middle of the night, Dr. Claire Summers (Anne Hathaway) is summoned to duty. She’s a beautiful psychiatrist in her mid-to-late 20’s called in to help rehab the survivors. She dresses as frumpy as she can to hide her beauty, because she’s a “professional” and wants to be taken seriously. After a couple of moments of screen time, all the viewer realizes is that Dr. Claire really needs to get laid.
Enter Eric (Little Children’s Patrick Wilson). He survived the crash and seems to be in a heightened state of euphoria, knowing he narrowly escape death. He’s seizing the moment and is so punch-drunk with giddiness that you just know he’s gonna snap and it ain’t going to be pretty (think Jeff Bridges in Fearless, except Fearless is a better movie). In the meantime, he’d like to get some personal time with Doctor Claire (“I’m not a patient”). Maybe HE could play a little doctor…
As an icebreaker, Eric rattles off little facts about Claire that only she would know (her unresolved issues with her sister, how she likes her coffee), but comes off creepy and stalkerish coming from anyone else. Claire makes her Myspace page private.
Claire reluctantly agrees to see Eric on a one-on-one basis because he’s special. It’s strictly professional (yeah, right). Apparently she knows she needs to make a little sexy-time for herself too as batteries can be a bitch to get in an all night drugstore at four in the morning when your animal-headed vibrator runs of whisker juice.
Claire’s also seeing the remaining survivors in group therapy sessions, the ones she’s not attracted to and not planning on fucking. They relate their stories and Claire doodles in her notebook, nods timely, and pretends to listen.
There are discrepancies with their stories. Not unusual considering a plane crash is a rather extreme situation. One passenger thought he heard an explosion right before the plane went down into the beach, which would nullify the “pilot error” scenario the airline’s been shoving down the media’s throats.
Claire and the others passengers see a mysterious figure lurking outside their sessions. She runs after him. He runs away.
Other passengers suspect, outside of the sessions, people following them.
Claire notices that the numbers in her group sessions are dwindling, because the passengers are disappearing. Is any of this thrilling you yet? It’s the same question you’ll be asking yourself at this point in the movie as you realize you’re about to claw your eyes out from boredom…
Is the airline behind something nefarious (yawn…), a cover-up of epic proportions? Or is there something weirder going on? Something…out of this world?
The answer should surprise anyone who has NEVER seen The Others or have NEVER EVER heard of The Sixth Sense (writer Ronnie Christensen is really hoping you haven’t). Or people who are stupid. Or who’ve just regained their eyesight after a lifetime of being blind and movies are an entirely new thing to them. Other than that…
What works about Passengers:
1.) Patrick Wilson’s “average-ness”, used to mask a child molester (Hard Candy), or an over-the-hill superhero (Watchmen), is exploited to the best possible effect as he’s the only performer you continue to pay attention to long after you’ve given up hope for the rest of the movie simply because you never really know where he’s coming from. And nothing in the rest of the movie holds your interest (15 minutes of the movie, and that’s being generous)
2.) What’s shown of the plane crash is the closest the movie gets to being thrilling as director Rodrigo Garcia stages the suddenness, and then the seeming endless “stretchy” feeling of one’s (or many in this case) final seconds of life. If only the rest of this movie were like this jarring (1 to 5 minutes)
3.) Two-time Oscar Winner Dianne Weist has a small handful of scenes as Claire’s overly jolly neighbor (“Spread your wings”). She’s so freakin’ cheery that she genuinely creeps you out. Nobody’s that happy unless they’re on a cabinet full of pills or has body parts in their freezer. When a film is this uninteresting, any character or event that wakes you up is welcome and probably gets more praise than it deserves (about 3 minutes running time)
4.) X-Files fans may notice actor William B. Davis in a very small part. He appeared in many episodes as the Cigarette Smoking Man and his first appearance had me mind-screaming “massive conspiracy”. It’s not too much of a stretch to say that almost any given episode of the X-Files is better than this movie (probably less than a minute)
What doesn’t work (one could say this entire movie, but maybe details would help):
1.) Again, Passengers is billed as a thriller, but the first hour is a series of dull meet-cutes that don’t add up to much. Even when a minor issue gets resolved, you’re way past the point of caring and probably looking at the counter of your player calculating how much more time you’re going to have to be watching this (see the entire running time of the movie, and that’s how much of this applies).
2.) You all have friends you watch movies with, and inevitably there’s that one jackass friend you have that feels the need to talk out loud at every possible clue as the movie unfolds. E.g. “_______ is the murderer” or “It was the mother!” Most of the time these chuckleheads are wrong, but feel the need to shout out something every time a notion crosses their feeble little minds. If you watch Passengers, your friend (let’s call him…Brad)…your friend Brad will scream out the twist of this movie…and for the first time in ages, he will be right.
Too bad you figured it out hours ago, but held your tongue because:
a) talking during movies should be a torture-worthy transgression. NO ONE wants to hear what you say, and if we WANTED to hear talking during the movie, we’d turn on the fucking audio commentary.
b) you held your tongue because you expected the twist to be a little less obvious, and not one the shortbus crew can guess within five minutes of the movie beginning. I’m being mean…make that 10 minutes.
Skip Passengers and let it fall into $5 bin obscurity where it belongs. Who knows, maybe you’ll see it on late night cable when you can’t sleep. Then it might help you get some Z’s.
Watch the trailer:
Popularity: 5% [?]
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