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  • Alternative Character Interpretation: Rippner, mainly because of his Draco in Leather Pants/Mr. Fanservice status (and the fact that he has no back story and his actions can easily be interpreted in various ways). Some fans consider Rippner a misunderstood Anti-Villain who was just doing his job and had genuine feelings for Lisa, but others think of him as a Psycho for Hire. Then there are some who even think Rippner was a cold-hearted and ruthless assassin who never cared an ounce about Lisa and was only using Lisa's past against her to mess with her mind.
  • Catharsis Factor: After spending the whole flight physically and mentally tormenting Lisa into compliance, Lisa finally turns it around on Rippner by stabbing a pen right through his windpipe and foiling the assassination. He attempts to track down and kill Lisa in a Villainous Breakdown, though largely gets his ass physically and mentally handed to him by Lisa as payback for everything he put her through.
    Lisa: Where's your male-driven fact-based logic now, Jack?
  • Complete Monster: Jackson Rippner is a "manager" who hires himself out to clients to pull off their illicit activities. Paid to arrange the death of Deputy Secretary Charles Keefe at the Lux Atlantic hotel, Rippner takes the hotel's manager, Lisa Reisert, hostage on her red eye flight and threatens the life of her father to force her to change Keefe's reservation to a room where his assassination can be completed. Rippner's assassination of Keefe involves an explosion that will kill not just the man himself, but also his wife, two kids, staff team, and any guests in surrounding rooms. Rippner spends the red eye flight horribly tormenting Lisa, from choking and slamming her against walls to forcing her to recount her rape while he mocks her about it, and when she thwarts his hit on Keefe, Rippner plans to kill Lisa and her father, promising to force her dad to watch her die.
  • Crossover Ship: There's a surprising amount of fics that ship Rippner with Jonathan Crane. For those of you who want hot Cillian Murphy on Cillian Murphy action! Of course, some fans have Rippner and Crane be brothers instead. Or both.
  • Cult Classic: The fandom is small, but quite devoted.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Rippner has a lot of fans who are willing to defend him, despite his manipulative and violent nature. Not surprising, since he's played by Cillian Murphy.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: Rebecca, the little girl that manages to keep a cool head at a crucial moment and trip Rippner, which, in hindsight, probably saved Lisa's life.
  • Fandom-Specific Plot: Most fanfic is of the Continuation Fic variety, usually following Jackson and Lisa meeting up again after he gets out of jail (whether via making a deal to escape a harsher sentence, escaping, or serving his sentence and possibly getting out on parole). Usually, Jackson tracks Lisa down, but some authors flip their dynamic on its head by having her pursue him, be it for revenge, closure, connection, or some combination of the three.
  • Fanfic Fuel: For a non-franchise film, it has a lot of fanfic. Common plots involve exploring Jackson Rippner's past (especially the Noodle Incident in which he apparently killed his own parents) and who his employers are, Lisa's own past, and Continuation Fics picking up from where the movie left off.
  • Fan Nickname: Fans (mostly those who ship Rippner and Lisa) jokingly call the movie "a Rom-Com". Probably due to the fact that the relationship between the main characters seemingly starts as a Meet Cute, and Rachel McAdams often being a star of the genre back in the 2000s and early 2010s.
  • Fanon Discontinuity: Sort of. It's not part of the film proper, but Wes Craven revealed in the DVD commentary that "Jackson Rippner" isn't his real name; just a made-up alias. The fandom tends to ignore this entirely in fanfiction.
  • Foe Yay Shipping: Lisa and Rippner's relationship has a very intentional, very sexual undertone to it, and it's canon that Rippner has a crush on Lisa. Lisa initially liked him back, but once she finds out the truth about Rippner, she quickly and understandably gets over it and hates him instead. This does not stop the shipping. At all.
  • Love to Hate: Rippner's fans that aren't measuring him for a pair of leather pants tend to put him in this category, fully admitting that he's a misogynistic, psychotic, murderous piece of slime and loving him to bits for it. Cillian Murphy's performance in depicting Rippner as a psychopathic slimeball helps.
  • Mind Game Ship: Rippner's and Lisa's "relationship" is practically built on this, what with the film revolving around the psychological mind play between them.
  • Misaimed Fandom: Rippner's fangirls, big time. The main cause of it being Draco in Leather Pants. See Alternate Character Interpretation.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Rippner more than likely crossed it a long time ago as this seemingly is not the first time he has been a part of assassination and terrorism plots, and he mentions the Keefe assassination is his last job, but viewers are divided between which of his actions shown were worse—strangling Lisa in the lavatory, knowing that Keefe's family will get killed in the assassination and willingly allowing it to happen, or trying to kill Lisa in the end of the film.
  • Narm:
    • For those who found Rippner getting pissed over a sea breeze just a little humorous.
    • When Rippner tries to speak after getting stabbed with a pen, he sounds all too much like Christian Bale's Batman. Which is funny, since it's Scarecrow playing the part.
  • Narm Charm: Jackson Rippner's name is so utterly on-the-nose that it should elicit groans and eye-rolls, but Cillian Murphy is such an intimidating, unsettling presence that no one is laughing for long. It helps that his full name is only said a handful of times, and he even lampshades what a terrible name it is to inflict on your kid.
  • No Yay: Rippner and Lisa. Rippner is a Ax-Crazy murderer out to kill Lisa's father and other people and Lisa herself. There's some sexual tension between the two and the scene in the airplane bathroom where he accosts her was dripping with rape metaphors. Word of God also says that Rippner developed feelings for Lisa in the entire time he was watching her and that he was jealous of the man who gave Lisa her scar and raped her.
  • Padding: Not for the film itself, but for the end credits (which are artificially extended to make the film longer, which is why a movie that only runs 85 minutes in total has an end credit sequence that lasts for around nine).
  • Paranoia Fuel:
    • Wes Craven played on the paranoia of flight: the isolation, claustrophobia, the feeling of being trapped, and sitting next to a complete stranger, not knowing who they are or what kind of person they are.
    • In a more general sense, that cute, charming, sweet guy you met turning out to not be charming or sweet, at all. Especially unsettling when you remember that Lisa is a rape victim — most rapes are committed by someone the victim knows.
    • It's mentioned that Rippner monitored Lisa prior to the flight, and was apparently vigilant enough that he knows her routine like the back of his hand and knows where she lives. He was watching her for eight weeks, and Lisa had no idea...
  • Psychosexual Horror: If someone writes a shipping fanfic it's really hard to ignore the fact that Rippner is a Stalker with a Crush and Lisa is a rape victim.
    • In many continuation fanfics Rippner often stalks Lisa again after escaping from hospital or prison. Lisa becomes even more paranoid and reclusive.
    • In some fanfics (especially if they rewrite the lavatory scene) Rippner straight up rapes Lisa.
    • Kidnapping is also quite common, since on the plane Rippner suggested would steal her.
  • Ron the Death Eater: In canon, what we know of Keefe basically amounts to: he's important enough that some very powerful people want him dead, he has a family, and he stays at Lisa's hotel a lot. In fanfiction, however, he's usually portrayed as a Corrupt Politician (with degrees varying from "sleazy and underhanded in the way that many politicians unfortunately are" to "staged the whole assassination thing to look like a hero"), often to make Rippner look less evil by comparison, and make his actions retroactively seem more justified.
  • The Woobie: Lisa. She spends about 95% of the film scared out of her mind, and for good reason — a charming stranger she met turned out to be a psychotic terrorist who was hired to force her to either choose to let her father die or be an accomplice to an assassination. And before the film, she was raped, leaving her with both a physical scar and several deep emotional ones. Throughout the flight, she's beaten up, manipulated, intimidated, and forced to comply to a truly heinous demand. It's a miracle she's still sane by the end of the movie.

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