I first bought my DVD copy of George McCowan's Murder on Flight 502 for $1.00 in a supermarket in 2004. I have waited 10 years to open the plastic wrap on the case and watch the damn thing. Now I wonder why I didn't wait another 10 years. The film is a boring, plodding, blandly shot "thriller" about a murderer on-board a plane in the middle of a trans-Atlantic flight. Now, that could be the set-up to a great movie. But Murder on Flight 502 isn't one of them. The characters are stock, the mystery predictable (I called the murderer just minutes into it), and the entire story is somehow bereft of tension and suspense. It also can't keep all of its side-plots up in the air. The most egregious is Sonny Bono as a has-been rock star who is very prominent in the first half of the film and then completely disappears until the last five minutes. This reveals these side-plots for what they really are: filler. I know Murder on Flight 502 was a made-for-TV movie. But that doesn't excuse it. I've seen good made-for-TV movies (ever see Buzz Kulik's Bad Ronald?). And may I just ask a quick question: why would you hire Farrah Fawcett if you were only going to make her a minor character with very little screentime?! She was America's sweet-heart!!
4/10
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