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I read the title of an AP article last Friday about the new Jodie Foster thriller Flightplan. Knowing that I was going to go see it the next day, and assuming reading it would probably spoil the movie for me, I held off writing this post until after I saw it. for those of you who have not seen the movie and don't wish to know what the ending is, turn away now. If you don't care, allow me to spoil it for you.

As described by the Associated Press:

In the Jodie Foster thriller about a mother looking for her missing daughter aboard a plane, a flight attendant colludes with an air marshal as part of a plot to extort a ransom from the airline.

Other flight attendants are shown treating passengers rudely and being unsympathetic to Foster's character, whom they think might be delusional.

This movie has managed to get real flight attendants up in arms. Three groups that represent flight attendants are calling for a boycott, claiming the Disney film could breed distrust of their members among real airline passengers. The three groups represent more that 80,000 flight attendants at 23 airlines.

Disney made a statement saying that the movie was not intended to create anything other than a great action thriller. They figured the public would be able to tell the difference between fiction and a non-fictional movie.

I saw the movie. Don't let the fact that it is a Disney movie make you think it is okay for you to take your 5 year old to go see. They won't understand it. I thought the movie was not bad. I would have given it a thumb up, and maybe some of the other thumb, but not two thumbs fully up. Most of the movie, all that the Jodie Foster character did was look for her daughter. I thought the search was a little too lengthy and some of it could have been cut out. I realize that the premise of the movie was finding the lost little girl, but still. I think the audiance got the idea after the first 15 minutes.

They added a nice little twist to the movie. Sitting in the front of the coach section of the plane was a group of Arabs. It definatly caught me off guard, questioning how politically correct this movie was. I will admit, during the movie, I thought that they had something to do with the lost daughter, but I was wrong. In the end, they symbolized an underlying message that not all Arabs are terrorists. As Fosters character is leaving the airport terminal, one of the Arab gentleman that Fosters character accuses of kidnapping her daughter during the movie helps her load her bags into the back of a minivan. I have to give the writers credit, it was a very well placed message.

Flight attendants who are protesting this movie, please realize that this is only a movie, not real, made up, Hollywood, FICTION. There are a number of other things you will see in the movie that don't actually happen in real life. I still trust you do a fine job supplying me with drinks and hard-to-open bags of peanuts on my flights.