(Foster) and her six-year-old daughter, Julia (Marlene Lawston) are accompanying her husband’s coffin on a plane from Berlin to New York after he apparently committed suicide by jumping from the roof of their apartment building. After getting settled in their seats, Kyle falls asleep and wakes mid-flight to find her daughter missing and nobody seems to remember her getting on the aircraft.

Kyle becomes convinced that the whole flight crew, including the captain (Sean Bean) is in on the kidnapping and suspicious characters seem to dog her at every turn. The only one who seems to be on her side is an air marshal (Peter Sarsgaard) who can’t make up his mind along with the other passengers whether she is crazy or a protective mother.

Foster, as usual, is on great form. These kind of roles seem to suit her down to the ground, although she needs to be careful that she doesn’t do them too often. There is also admirable support from Bean and Greta Scacchi as a psychiatrist passenger. The script borrows a lot from Hitchcock’s classic, The Lady Vanishes, but Schwentke manages to pull it off with aplomb and shows how an aeroplane can seem like a claustrophobic labyrinthe. This is entertaining stuff.

(4/5)