Having referenced Se7en with his 2002 film Tattoo, German director Robert Schwentke uses The Lady Vanishes as the template for this oppressive action thriller. Nearly demented with grief after her husband's sudden death in Berlin, aeronautical engineer Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster) boards a plane bound for the US with her daughter Julia (Marlene Lawston) and her late husband's coffin. When Kyle awakes from a nap, Julia has vanished. No one remembers the little girl having been there and there's no record of her boarding the plane. With the help of an in-flight air marshal (Peter Sarsgaard), Kyle then tries to get to the bottom of this claustrophobic mystery. Although stylishly filmed and finely acted, the script's intriguing premise, which taps into anxieties about air travel post-9/11, dissolves in a flurry of improbable revelations in the last act that leave you feeling cheated. Nevertheless, Foster further perfects her strong-jawed woman-in-peril schtick, while Sarsgaard and Sean Bean - as the plane's captain - provide outstanding support throughout.

Flying at 40,000 feet in a state-of-the art aircraft that she helped design, Kyle Pratt's 6-year-old daughter Julia vanishes without a trace. Or did she? No one on the plane believes Julia was ever onboard. And now Kyle, desperate and alone, can only count on her own wits to unravel the mystery and save her daughter.