The promise of a slick action movie that attracted Jodie Foster out of her family-tie enforced exile is enough to entice many to the theatre for a bout of escapism.

But the opening scenes, cold and stark and set in a snow covered Berlin, give promise of a far more enthralling thriller, perhaps one of a psychological kind.

Just a week after her husband's death, Foster's Kyle is scheduled to take a flight back to the States to bury her late spouse.

Along for the ride – apparently – is her 6-year-old daughter, Julia.

Given that the premise is the movie's selling point, it isn't long before Kyle dozes off for a couple of hours and awakens to discover an empty seat beside her, and a plane full of passengers that don't recall seeing her daughter in the first place.

Promising something of a Hitchcockian experience, it is somewhat unfortunate that the big reveal, when it finally arrives, does nothing for the course of the journey.

A vast array of red herrings - including an astonishingly badly handled sequence involving 4 Arab passengers - keep the audience occupied, and the tension is undoubtedly thick - until we find out what's been happening all along.

Sean Bean is his ever-dependable self, providing gravitas to a series of scenes that don't deserve it, while Peter Saarsgard spends most of the movie on the right side of a positive review.

It's difficult to criticise the movie without spoiling the reveal, although that in itself is a contradiction because the reveal is so bad the movie becomes redundant anyway.

Of the actors involved in the woeful final reel, one clearly thinks he is Ray Liotta on crack, acting like a raving banshee with no teeth, thus becoming little more than pointless and irritating.

If you want a thriller set in the air, watch the superior Red Eye – at least Wes Craven knows better than to stick to cliché-ridden material without poking fun at it.

Jodie Foster's iron-jawed heroine may be a strong woman for her to portray (you’ll note that after a particularly clever set-up scene in which she carries four bags downstairs on her own) but you'd be hard pressed to find another woman on the planet that can overact as much without moving a muscle in her face.

A promising and at times fun affair, but ultimately just another thriller that thinks it is - and perhaps could have been - a whole lot more.

Rich Phippen