Jodie Foster gives a performance in Flightplan that is much better than the film deserves. She embodies intelligence mixed with an end-of-one's-emotional-tether intensity with a force that compels a viewer to believe what she is experiencing, but the problem is that what happens in the film is so implausible that the audience becomes disconnected from the film. As the situation grows more and more ridiculous, it becomes easy to wish that an actress less talented than Foster were playing the lead. The problem is compounded by a pitch-perfect Peter Sarsgaard, who understands exactly what kind of film he is in and delivers a scene-chewing performance that allows the viewer to laugh at the silliness of the situation without minimizing the director's intended level of menace. Director Robert Schwentke so enjoys playing sub-Hitchcockian games with perspective and framing that he has no time to focus on anything else. An attempt to comment on the ease with which a crowd can make racist conclusions about Arabs is simply exploitative, sickeningly so when one ponders on how easily the screenwriter and director let the audience and the characters off the hook in this regard. The third act is a clunky mess, offering one implausible scene after another until all that is left is sympathy for an actress who gave her all and was given no support whatsoever.