Passengers (2008) Movie Review

Passengers is a psychological thriller that plays out like a mix between The Forgotten and The Sixth Sense. There is a twisted ending that really comes to no surprise, but wants to make audiences’ jaws drop. The film is drastically flawed with wooden characters and no depth to any of them, despite the presence of talent like Anne Hathaway and Patrick Wilson as the leads.

The film follows Claire Summers (Anne Hathaway), who is a grief counselor that has recently, be assigned by her mentor (Andre Braugher) to help the five lone survivors of a deadly plane crash. Less rattled than the others, Eric (Patrick Wilson) is now a free-spirit that is taking advantage of life and refuses to meet with Claire for sessions unless they meet at his apartment. Meanwhile, a questionable airline employee named Arkin (David Morse), is following Claire continuously and questions her methods of therapy. All is not as it seems to be as Claire searches for the truth of what occurred on the flight, all while getting closer to her patient Eric.

Rodrigo Garcia (Nine Lives) directs the film from a flimsy script by Ronnie Christensen. The film departs into the world of the unexplained and attempts to capture the essence of The Twilight Zone or The X-Files, but the film stalls in muddled position. The script drags along for the first hour and then strikes up hardly any energy during its supposed tense final act. The payoff is supposed to be the big twist at the end of the film, but most audiences have seen it before. Also in question is authenticity of the characters, since Garcia makes the film so serious, which includes Eric continuously hitting flirtatiously with Claire and eventually sleeping with her in his house. It has happened, but where are her ethics, since she is such a strict and intelligent therapist. Outside of the musical score, most of Passengers is a mess from a production standpoint.

It is hard to believe that Anne Hathaway could deliver such as stilted and bland performance as Claire, after she has proven she has the skills one of the top actresses of her generation. This is a forgettable performance that she does not have to worry about, since she will probably get an Oscar nomination this year for her work in Rachel Getting Married. Patrick Wilson also does not offer much, as he is a better actor than his uneven performance as Eric. The rest of the cast composed of David Morse, Andre Braugher, and Dianne Wiest are also talented, but offer nothing noteworthy with their supporting turns in this film.

Passengers is a thriller that most audiences have seen before and builds up to a supposed big twist ending, but is dull and unbalanced. The characters have no depth and the acting is subpar and the energy of the film is lousy.