Roberts and Jackson Rippner: separated at birth?

So I've been watching the John Roberts hearing, and I found myself thinking, where have I seen that before? The unnusually light-blue eyes, the very square face, the mama's-boy haircut, the charming facade disguising a cold, dead heart . . . Oh yeah, it was Jackson Rippner, the assassin-type Cillian Murphy plays in Red Eye, the v. entertaining movie co-starring Rachel McAdams of Mean Girls fame.

The movie is totally worth seeing if you're in the mood for a popcorn thriller that's not gory. There's a great moment when Rachel's character, Lisa, is freaking out as the plane takes off because she's afraid of flying, and Jackson, who started up a banter with her in the terminal and seems to be sitting by her on the plane in a happy coincidence, starts asking her questions about her family. When the plane levels off, Lisa thanks him for distracting her. "Oh, no, that's not what I was doing," he replies (I'm paraphrasing, peeps.) "Oh yeah, what were you doing?," she asks him somewhat flirtatiously. "I'm trying to keep the focus on you and your father," he answers. "Why, are you a shrink?" she says, somewhat less confidently. "No, I'm working with a team of assassins who have kidnapped your father and we'll kill him if you don't do what we say." Fast fade from flirtation to terror. Great cinematic moment.

It would be nice if I could tell you what the parallel point in the Roberts hearing was, but there really wasn't one. The hearing is more like the earlier part in the movie when Jackson is trying to make nice with Lisa in the airport, and when she tells a grumpy fellow traveller to stop picking on the airline employees, he gets her back--but as he talks to the guy, he grabs his arm just a tad too hard. You only know it's foreshadowing in the movie because you've seen the preview. I'm afraid the airplane-confrontation part of the Roberts tale might not come until we realize we're stuck on the judicial equivalent of a red-eye flight in the seat next to him, like, I mean, when he's the Chief Justice for the next 40 years.

john roberts cillian murphy red eye