Directed by Peter Thorwarth. Written by Thorwarth and Stefan Holtz. Starring Peri Baumeister, Carl Anton Koch, Kais Setti, Graham McTavish, Alexander Scheer and Dominic Purcell.
Plot: a mother with a “mysterious illness” must protect her son at any costs when terrorists hijack their transatlantic flight.
The film opens with a plane being guided down to a RAF base in Scotland because the man who is in control of the plane is not a pilot. As a matter of fact, the men on the ground believe that the man in the plane is a terrorist. However, a young boy does come off the plane unharmed and the Colonel Drummond (McTavish) takes him into custody so his people can speak to him and figure out just what happened on the plane.
The movie then moves back in time to a mother, Nadja (Baumeister), and son, Elias (Koch), boarding a plane. Elias makes quick friends with Farid (Setti), another passenger and physicist. Nadja is obviously sick with what the viewer assumes is cancer since she is bald beneath her wig and is headed to the US for treatment. But then several terrorists take over the plane, murdering the captain and the three marshals on board. Scared, Elias tries to hide and Nadja goes after him. One especially psychopathic terrorist, Eightball (Scheer), shoots Nadja. Berg (Purcell), the American terrorist leader, threatens Eightball for this “mistake” and assuming Nadja is dead, they leave her body where it fell. Only she isn’t dead at all. In a flashback, it’s revealed that Nadja was attacked by a vampire years earlier and is now a vampire herself. We’re not even giving a lot away when we tell you this because it all happens pretty early on. After that though, a lot of chaos ensues and I will now spoil some of it, simply to explain the difference in mine and DJ’s scores.
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The terrorists motivation is madness pure and simple. They make Farid read a statement suggesting that he is the hijacker because they want people to believe Muslims are to blame. They know the plane will be shot down as well, so they have a plan to parachute out before that happens. It seems they are in cahoots with a private defense contractor and war would fill their pockets plenty.
Moving on, Nadja gets up, weakened, and kills a dog in the cargo hold to get stronger. It’s a shame, but it works, however it makes her a bit more vampiric. Then, she’s forced to kill Berg and she turns a bit more. Eightball sees this, realizes Nadja’s a vampire, uses a UV light to debilitate her and then takes some of her blood into a needle. Why? Because he wants to be a vampire, too. So, he injects himself, turns and begins a massacre. When the whole plane is turned except for Elias and Farid, Nadja decides to go after explosives the terrorists had and blow the plane up with herself and the rest of the vampires inside. Elias doesn’t want his mother to die though, and he grabs the detonator instead.
In the end, you realize that Farid is the one who landed the plane and he is now trapped in the cockpit because the vampires have taken over the rest of the plane. When Elias begins talking, he tells Colonel Drummond that they need to go rescue Farid before night falls, but Drummond thinks he’s simply in shock. They end up waiting too long to enter the plane and as night falls, the vampires get stronger and the whole RAF is attacked AFTER boarding the plane and arresting Farid. DJ and I were surprised by how exceptional we found the story to be, but the final few scenes divided us a bit. See, Elias jumps from a moving ambulance and starts running toward the plane. He then sees Nadja leave the plane and he calls for her, but she no longer recognizes her son. At least not as anything more than a meal, so to speak. Still having the detonator stuffed in his teddy bear, Elias presses the button and blows up the plane and his mother along with it. Still cuffed, Farid races over to Elias and embraces him, with Colonel Drummond ordering for him to be released.
At lot of critics attacked the pacing and length of the movie, but we were never bored. The innovation wasn’t marvelous, but it sure was bloody. Two dogs die, which is awful, although you don’t see the one death at all, but I still took off points. DJ took off some points because he didn’t really find anyone admirable except Farid. And we both took points away because aside from Farid, it had no Freddy Claws at all. Some wonderful points were given from both of us because of the cast and the effects. Also, the story was dreadfully realistic. The politics were on point and unfortunately so were the actions of most of the characters. DJ and I thought a lot about the film after it was over and even took time to discuss before scoring it. What it essentially came down to is that while we both found it worthy of a watch, the ending took a lot away from the story as a whole for DJ. I’m a very optimistic person, I know, and I’d like to assume the powers that be let Farid have custody of Elias in the long run. DJ, a self-proclaimed realist, just doesn’t feel that to be true. So, I thought it was great and DJ simply thought it was okay.
My score: 68. DJ’s score: 47.
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