Dina Meyer

AVOID

Agent Dina Meyer works for the FBI and has a corner office, which suggests she’s high up in the FBI hierarchy. The crime involved is committed during the day and is public.

While Agent Dina is on a transcontinental flight, her seat mate is unusually chatty. That doesn’t raise alarm bells for FBI Agent Dina. Talk and chats draft to a shoe dropping: Agent Dina’s family has been kidnapped in their Los Angeles home and obviously Agent-Dina is supposed to supply, delete or deliver the goods so her family will be released. I assume Agent Dina is familiar with FBI procedures during a kidnapping and when they are public; they can end tragically.

What’s Agent Dina do in the movie? She goes along with the kidnapping plot, following all instructions of the chatty seat mate. It’s a big drama about Agent-Dina’s predicament and the fate of her family. In the end Agent-Dina gets a gun and shoots bad guys for another sappy movie where characters are witless until a gun can be drawn.

Imagine the same movie based on reality. Agent-Dina hears of her family’s kidnapping and immediately silences the chatty seat mate. Agent Dina calls the stewardess while she restrains and secures the chatty seat mate. Agent-Dina identifies herself, FBI Agent, and issues commands: All communications between the jet and the ground cease; the plane has a mechanical problem and is returning to LA; using the plane’s radio Agent-Dina calls the FBI; on alert, the Bureau send out swat-teams to Agent-Dina’s house which is not far from the FBI offices in the radiator building in Westwood. [Agent-Dina’s house is an upscale westside landmark with an expansive million dollar kitchen – one wall of big matching stainless steel appliances useful when holding a party for hundreds].

The remainder of the real story is how the FBI unravels the plot which extends to Agent Dina’s work at the FBI. Bad guys are killed or arrested.

The end of the film is a party in Agent-Dina’s kitchen which substitutes for the movie’s wrap party.