Red eye flies high

The eponymous Hollywood director in Preston Sturges's Sullivan's Travels discovers that his metier is comedy, not social-conscience drama. By the same token Wes Craven probably learnt from Music of the Heart -- in which Meryl Streep played an inspirational violin teacher working at an inner-city New York school -- that he was put on earth to make horror flicks, not to indulge in spiritual uplift. However, in his latest movie, Red Eye, Craven has turned a few degrees away from pure horror into the white-knuckle thriller and made the most exciting and lean movie currently going the rounds.

It is of course a bag of genre conventions (or as some might say, cliches), and it has the same basic plot as Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much and the Johnny Depp vehicle The Nick of Time: an assassin forces someone to assist him by threatening the life of a close relative, a child in the case of the two earlier films, a father in Red Eye. On a night flight from Dallas to Miami, a charming, slightly menacing young fellow (Cillian Murphy) introduces

himself to the good-looking Lisa (Rachel McAdams) as Jack Rippner, a facilitator of assassinations.

Disoriented after attending a funeral and having a stiff drink waiting for the delayed plane, she doesn't immediately take in his demand that she assists him in bumping off the US secretary for homeland security. The cabinet member and his family are just about to book into the hotel where she's in charge of customer services and the allocation of rooms. If Lisa doesn't help, an associate is in position to murder her dad (Brian Cox).

The insidious Jack with his carefully-laid plans and ruthless ways is up against a formidable woman whose career is based on skilled organization, handling tricky situations and placating difficult customers. There is no romantic interest, no sub-plots, just 80 minutes of plausible

suspense, artfully punctured at the right moments by carefully placed touches of Hitchcockian comedy.

Though the plot may not stand up to that much scrutiny, Craven nicely channels some post-Sept. 11 high anxiety. The gallery of passengers -- grungy guy, sweet old lady, unaccompanied kid etc -- calls to mind the Abrahams/Zucker spoof

Airplane, but even this

resemblance gives it a pleasingly classic, generic feel. Buckle up!