If you’re a regular here, then you know that I’m usually watching some random movie or series with my best friends and today is no different. I opened Amazon Prime and the preview for this movie intrigued me, so I forced my best friend to watch it with me. Never take an adventure alone.
We start by being introduced to a woman waking up on a plane. We later learn that this woman is Claire Reynolds, a woman who graduated top of her class, is a former track star, and has always wanted to go to Paris, so much so that she’s booked a weeklong solo trip. Just before she leaves, she meets with her good friend Jessica at a local bar. There, she meets Marco, who is seen admiring her from afar. Jessica leaves to allow them to flirt. She stays a little too long, and now it’s time to go home after three or four martinis. Marco offers to use his driver to take her home. She passes out in the car, and the next scene is her waking up on her flight.
This, at first glance, may seem like I’ve ruined the movie for you. I have not because it gets weirder from there.
I want to stop here and say I’ve never been this confused by a movie in a while. Well, besides Flew’d Out. This movie felt like it should be on Tubi, and surprise, surprise, it is. It just also happens to be on Amazon Prime. Let me start with what didn’t work and then move to the positives.
Camera work=terrible. Unless it was a static shot, camera movement was shaky and editing to make it more like we, as the viewer, were also drugged, did not help. It just felt odd and almost like the filmmakers either couldn’t use some footage they had or they didn’t shoot enough to fill the time. Speaking of time, you all padded this movie with nonsense. Usually, I’m complaining about the movie being too long because there is a really long car chase or a fight sequence. None of that here. There wasn’t even any real fighting! There were one and a half struggles, and that was it.
Also, Claire is not written well. People tell us that she’s a star and she’s so smart, but I only saw that intelligence once in the whole movie. Think about this. If you last remember being in a car riding to your house with a man, you just met at the bar, and then you wake up on a plane, wouldn’t you have questions? Wouldn’t you be concerned? John Ierardi and Drew McAnany are the screenwriters of this film, and I have to say that y’all did not do a good job of show and tell with Claire. Honestly, you set her and us up by telling us she was so smart and then having her look feeble, small, and clumsy this entire film.
Let’s speed to the ending here. The ending made no real sense to me, and I can’t find where anyone has explained it. It seems like she was being tested the entire time for some secret position with one of those “we were never here” organizations. Apparently, her father, who is deceased, was a part of this organization, too, but they seemed thrown in. She mentioned her father passing or we see some semblance of that notion twice. TWICE! That is not enough to create this whole ordeal around him and make it the reason she’d want to be recruited.
Then, if that wasn’t bad enough, I don’t really understand if she’s catching bad guys. Is she only catching them on planes? What did these people even do? Why is the organization secret? One agent said her dad had a completely different name. John….Drew…. this was your movie. The movie was a mystery of this dad and his work. Not Claire. Focusing on Claire made this film boring, frustrating, and not realistic at all. Not all thrillers have to be realistic, but the good ones make you feel like you could be on a hijacked plane tomorrow. This had that potential.
This leads me into what I loved about this film. The meat was there. The story was there but it was the wrong story. We started with this mystery. That was the good part. Great start. Then, we mentioned this dad and never really got back to him. Make him the other mystery. Have someone mention her dad accidentally while she’s in this maze. What I see is potential but not the greatest follow through.
Has anyone come across this movie in their aimless scrolls?
