Flightplan (2005)
38 questions
Directed by: Robert Schwentke
Starring: Jodie Foster, Kate Beahan, Peter Sarsgaard, Sean Bean
Question: At the end of the movie, when they are at the tip of the plane, Jodi and her daughter slip into a tiny compartment, just as she activates the bomb. She and her daughter are safe, and the small space they were in must have been bomb-proof. Since that compartment is at a part of the plane that is rarely visited, how come a tiny place was made entirely bomb-proof? Or what was the space they climbed into and for what reason was it made?
Chosen answer: At the end of the movie, the police ask Kyle to look at a photo to ID the morgue director. So he was in on it. He had to be because Gene/Carson didn't have the code to open the casket. Therefore he could not have put the explosives into the casket. Remember he needed Kyle to leave it open on the plane.
Question: At the very beginning of the movie, Kyle sits on the bench alone in the empty subway station. She looks very shocked or frightened. Why is that? Because at that time, her husband David is not dead. He walks up to Kyle and they get on the yellow subway train home.
Bunch SonAnswer: I believe he isn't really there. She's on her own on the way to the morgue but she's too scared to do it; that's why she's upset and why she takes long time to get on the train but he appears in her head to give her the courage to get up and get on the train to the morgue. It's done to set the scene.
Chosen answer: It's never explained. She might have been concerned about something at work or there were problems with her marriage that she is contemplating. Personally, I attribute it partly to Jodi Foster's acting style. She tends to play scenes in an overly intense manner.
raywest
Question: After reading what really happened, I am still not understanding why they killed her husband. Did he know something that he should not have known? I do understand the need for his coffin to hide the bombs...now why did they need to take her daughter as a 'hostage' for the sake of the $50 million dollars?
Chosen answer: If there's no dead husband, there's no coffin to hide a bomb in. Without the daughter's disappearance, Kyle won't have reason to unlock the coffin (only she knew the code; the terrorists didn't). When the captain initially refuses to have the hold searched, the marshal suggests it would be a good idea for him to take Kyle down there and look. This would be for the purpose of having her open the coffin, and allowing him to access the bomb.
Question: Kyle poses at the hijacker and demands Carson to stay on the plane. Why would his cover be potentially blown if he refused?
Answer: It was less about his cover being blown than Carter needing to stay aboard to try and salvage the situation and possibly kill Kyle. Kyle wanted him on the plane in order to expose his plan and to find her daughter.
raywestQuestion: Even if Carson was exposed as the hijacker, how would the US, and Canada charge him? The crime was committed outside of both of those nations.
Answer: They can still arrest him, regardless of where the crime was committed. He'd likely be extradited to the appropriate place to be charged. Also, the crime was occurring while the plane was on Canadian soil. There would also be matters of violating international law.
raywestQuestion: Why did Kyle Pratt kill Carson, instead of sparing his life, running to either the cargo door or passenger door, showing the people her daughter, telling them he was the hijacker? He appears to have injured his leg after he fell down in the restroom, He was further away from both of the doors than Kyle, And she probably would gotten to one of them before him, because he wouldn't have been able to move fast enough to get to either of the doors before her. And then he would have gotten arrested, because then the people would have realised that he had deceived them. And his charismatic and manipulative skills would no longer have helped him.
Answer: Because even if she had managed to convince people he was the hijacker, and get him arrested, there would have been risks that he would escape from jail, and try to get revenge on her for ruining his plan.
Answer: There's something satisfying with seeing a villain undone by his own devices, so after Kyle finds out that Carson was behind everything and willing to kill her and her daughter, Kyle is eliminating his threat while getting revenge, thus providing an explosive end to him that might satisfy the moviegoers desire for his utter defeat.
Erik M.Question: How did Carson manage to keep people from finding out that he murdered Kyle's husband? It's not like German crime scene investigators are stupid. Surely crime scene investigators would have found evidence that Kyle's husband was murdered.
Answer: Carson was part of a conspiracy. He did not actually kill Kyle's husband, his accomplices did the actual killing. For whatever reason, the death at that time was ruled a suicide.
raywestAnswer: The audience is not given much information about the investigation into Kyle's husband's death, only that he fell and that ultimately it was ruled a suicide. The conspiracy may include more people, OR some levels of assumption and sloppy police work-it's a plot hole.
Erik M.Answer: At the end, when Kyle is speaking to the captain just before he disembarks the plane, she then realises that everyone believes she is the terrorist. She works out that Carson is the likely person behind the scheme and had been manipulating everything happening during the flight. When Kyle starts pretending to the captain that she is the terrorist in order to get what she wants (to find her daughter), Carson then realises that she likely now knows that he is in on the plot.
raywestQuestion: Why would the airport not x-ray a casket? Did the morgue director order them not to?
Answer: Often times cargo, such as the casket, are sent by "known shippers" and it's the known shippers that were responsible for screening. So the airport would not x-ray cargo that was already deemed secured (i.e. safe).
Bishop73Question: Why did Kyle want to sit in the courtyard with her husband at the beginning? She looked quite serious. What is the significance?
Bunch SonChosen answer: There's no explanation, but there seems to be some sort of tension or discord going on between them that may be putting some strain on their marriage. They may have wanted a more private place to discuss something where they knew their daughter could not overhear. They also acted this way when they're in the subway station, communicating that all is not right between them.
raywestChosen answer: When the captain angrily described the terrorist plans to Kyle as he deboarded, she put that together with everything else that happened.
James King IIIQuestion: Look at how powerful the blast is when Kyle detonates the explosives. Wouldn't a blast as powerful as depicted kill both Kyle and Carson in real life?
Answer: Most likely, in real life, the blast would kill them, but this is a movie, and as the Mythbusters proved many times on their TV show, Hollywood does not always adhere to scientific fact when it serves the purpose of telling the story. This is called 'suspension of disbelief'.
raywestQuestion: How did Carson convince the captain Kyle was a hijacker without showing any evidence of Kyle being a hijacker?
Answer: Basically, Carson used his role as an air marshal to mislead everyone. In matters of security, the captain would assume the marshal was the expert and he would follow his recommendations.
raywestWell a plot hole says just Carson is an Air Marshal does not mean the captain would trust him. The captain would know Air Marshals break the law too.
The captain had no reason to distrust him. He's busy flying the plane and Carson is acting exactly the way an air marshal would.
raywestYou would have to read the entire plot hole.
The captain has no reason at all to distrust an air marshal at that point. First of all, he was suspicious of her from the beginning and was angry for disrupting the flight which was the whole point of removing all evidence of the daughter, which was also the point have the morgue director sending a fake certificate that Julia died. They were going to use the "daughter's disappearance" as a credible excuse for "Kyle" to enter the hold and retrieve the explosives. The real plot hole is not that Carson has no evidence of as a hijacker, but why the airline accepts the "hijacker's" request to wire the money without talking to them or having a background identity.
Question: How come Julia wasn't listed on the flight manifest?
Answer: It is never explained. Stephanie, the flight attendant who was in on the conspiracy, claimed that only Kyle's name was on the manifest and the seat next to her was unoccupied. Whether she somehow manipulated the manifest or someone else in on the plot was able to remove Julia's name, is unknown.
raywestThere is probably no way she could have manipulated the flight manifest since you can't access it from on board a plane.
Julia's name would have been deleted before Stephanie boarded the plane.
raywestWait a minute, I thought a passenger's name wasn't put on the flight manifest until he or she boards the plane.
Question: Where did the hijackers hide Julia?
Answer: They hid her in the avionics section. Stephanie would have made sure that she "searched" that section since she is one of the hijackers.
Which part of the avionics section? The nose of the plane?
The avionics section can be much larger than the nose of the plane. On a 747 for example, it's "1.7 metres tall, and about 60cms wide, but goes the full width of the plane." A photo is here, and you could easily stash a child in it. Http://www.billzilla.org/aviationpage3.html.
Jon SandysActually if you look at the shape of the interior where they hid Julia you can tell that it's the nose of the plane, and it would have been far too full with all kinds of equipment to put a child inside.
OK, well there's already a mistake mentioning that, so there's your answer. In the plot they hide her in the nose, but in the real world that's impossible.
Jon Sandys
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Chosen answer: The hatch they climb into is the hold of the plane, i.e., the section with the coffin, the car, and all the other luggage in. It only appears small because of the way it is filmed. As Kyle would have known, it would have been extra strong and reinforced, as it was a break in two sections of the plane.