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Jodie Foster keeps 'Flightplan' on target

When Jodie Foster makes a movie, attention must be paid. Even if it's a cheeseball like 2002's "Panic Room."

Though it has a similar mother-protects-daughter theme, "Flightplan" is considerably better than the earlier film. A pretty darn good psychological thriller whose most preposterous moments, unfortunately, come near the end, the movie casts Foster as Kyle Pratt, a recent widow flying her husband's casket back to the States. Somewhere between Berlin and New York City, at approximately 37,000 feet, her 6-year-old daughter, Julia (adorable, big-eyed Marlene Lawston), goes missing while Kyle is taking a much-needed nap.

Touchstone Pictures 'Flight Plan' B The verdict: Some bumpy spots, but kept aloft by Jodie Foster's fierce performance. Director: Robert Schwentke Starring: Jodie Foster, Peter Sarsgaard, Erika Christensen, Sean Bean, Haley Ramm Run time: 93 minutes Release date: Sept. 23, 2005 Rating: PG-13 for violence and some intense plot material. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime [an error occurred while processing this directive]

How a little girl could disappear mid-flight is one question. Another is, does Julia even exist? There's no record of her on the manifest and none of the flight attendants or other passengers recalls seeing her on the plane. As her hysteria mounts, Kyle finds herself desperately trying to convince Captain Rich (Sean Bean) and the on-board air marshal, Gene Carson (Peter Sarsgaard), that she's not just a grief-stricken woman made delusional by her recent loss. That there really is a Julia.

The first part of the film is quite gripping as director Robert Schwentke makes good use of an airplane's confined, claustrophobic space — even if it's a huge two-tiered plane with countless hiding places ... or places to hide a little girl.

He also plays on Kyle's underlying paranoia. Who can she trust? Who can help? In one nice bit, another passenger, a well-intentioned but generic psychotherapist, tries some on-the-spot grief counseling — which Kyle detests, then uses for her own purposes.

As we've long ago learned from her Oscar-winning performances in "The Accused" and "The Silence of the Lambs," when someone messes with Jodie, she messes back. As it happens, she's a propulsion engineer who knows every nook and cranny of the plane (it seems like a resoundingly stupid coincidence but is actually germane to the plot). And she knows, literally, how to push Rich and Carson's buttons. At one point, she sends the cabin into chaos by causing the lights to go off and the oxygen masks to drop. Not since William Shatner saw a thingie on the wing of his plane in an old "Twilight Zone" has a flight been thrown into such panic by one passenger.

Schwentke pushes a lot of buttons, too. He plays on our collective post-Sept. 11 fear of flying and the racial profiling it's engendered. And, of course, it's a dark and stormy night for a transatlantic flight, with the plane having to be de-iced before it takes off.

Most importantly, Schwentke is clearly aware of his movie's greatest asset: his star. Foster is often filmed in extreme close-up so we can watch the play of emotions across her face or her thought process before she bolts down an aisle.

Interestingly, no matter how far we've come, there's still a residual resistance to female action heroes (unless they're superpowered in some way). More interestingly still, Foster's part was originally written as a male. Yet she's so buff, so quick-witted, so decisive, so, well, Jodie, she's completely convincing.

Some of the extras overact — especially one hulking guy who doesn't like Arabs. And the rough air near the end is kind of like what Jeff Goldblum said in the first "Jurassic Park" sequel. Action movies: Things start well, then there's all the running and the screaming.

Jodie Foster doesn't scream. She simply gets the job done.