By Evan Ferstenfeld

From the steely bluish hues of the airplane's insides to the icy, soulless stares and body language of its unconcerned flight attendants, director Robert Schwentke wants to ensure that no one feels the slightest warm welcome from the screen while trying to even remotely enjoy his new "Hitchcockian" no-frills thriller, Flightplan. In an age so desensitized to other's needs that one can barely find a customer service rep who doesn't want to personally destroy every caller from the inside out before a question is even uttered, Flightplan's sole redeeming quality is its fine, perilous example of a world that has taken information overload to its extreme, made mili-second judgment based on incomplete information, and has completely drowned out other's concerns in a sea of self-indulgence and i-pod equipment. Flightplan feeds off the notion that we live in a damn cruel world that is only getting more indifferent to every human’s existence, an environment ideal for the disappearance of a quiet child (Marlene Lawston) and disastrous for a frantic mother (Jodie Foster) attempting to alert others to help her with such a predicament.

The feeling of detachment and animosity that Flightplan works overtime to rattle the audience with unfortunately seeps into every rivet of both the "Titanic of the sky" double-decker airplane that serves as the film's centerpiece and the attitudes of the movie's creators. Even before we have a chance to get to know our fearless protagonist and her lovely lil' one, Flightplan hurls everything at the audience besides a movie usher shaking you around in your seat to amp up the intensity of a missing child that cannot be found in a space with only so many places to hide. Jodie Foster, an actress that several cinematic ages ago drew blood while trading serrated dialogue with a hockey-masked people eater in the nerve-wrecking thriller Silence of the Lambs, is given the unfair task of making us care about a woman the audience has barely even shook hands to greet yet, as well as revving the audience up to be concerned about a little girl who might as well be replaced by a wet-nosed puppy dog with eyes that melt hearts. Foster rants, raves, scoffs, smashes, and beguiles everything around her as she goes from zero to manic within moments of her child's missing status, pushing into action a series of cinematic clichés so rampantly unrealistic, predictable and joyless in execution you can actually hear the audience’s eyeballs glazing over in unison.

Where most competent thrillers dump the audience into a sandbox brimming with shiny, misleading objects and the vaguest of instructions on where to dig for its many hidden secrets, Flightplan plops the viewer onto a cold, cement slab that has a pile of breadcrumbs leading to an "X" marking the spot. Peter A. Dowling's shockingly simplistic script leaves no room for guessing games or red herrings, but is keen to include the least menacing bad guy since Ah-nold's goofy Mr. Freeze of Batman Forever infamy. Only Sean Bean delivers a rousing, unflappable performance as the stern Captain Rich.

While Flightplan's creators ably constructed a premise that perks up the ears in anticipation and snaps the head forward with complete attention, the remaining ninety percent of the feature rarely puts forth any serious participatory involvement in its pacing, plot twists or payoff. While most modern-day thrillers make or break themselves by forever striving to be one step ahead of the audience’s trail of discovery, Flightplan's outdated and out-of-shape plot contrivances wheeze their way up to the obvious ending, miles behind a theatre of moviegoers already standing at the finish line.

Grade: D
Rating: PG-13
Running time: 98 Mins.