Jack Rippner

Jack Rippner is the main antagonist of Red Eye.

Lisa Reisert fears flying. After attending her grandmother's funeral in Dallas, Texas, she takes a red-eye flight to Miami, Florida. While in the check-in line she meets an elderly woman who is interested in Lisa's Dr. Phil book. She tells her she's a fan, Lisa gives the old lady her book saying she has already read it. She then meets Jackson Rippner whom she initially finds charming and they share a drink while they wait to board their delayed flight (The name "Jackson Rippner" is likely a word play of "Jack the Ripper", Lisa realizes this allusion and points it out)

When boarding, Lisa finds out that Jackson is on the same flight and is seated beside her. After take off, Rippner reveals that he is a terrorist operative working for a group who intends to assassinate the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Charles Keefe and his family, and Lisa is instrumental in their plans because of her job at the Lux Atlantic Hotel (where the Keefe family is staying) as acting manager. If she refuses to cooperate, he will deploy a hitman to kill her father, Joe at his home in Miami. Lisa has no way of getting help without jeopardizing her father's safety, and if she waits longer, it will be difficult to prevent the murder. She tries desperately to save the day. Her first attempt is when the old lady from the check-in line comes to talk to her about the book. She tries to write a warning inside the book. However, Rippner later finds out, and he headbutts her unconscious. She goes into the restroom and writes a warning on the mirror with soap. When she leaves, she is stopped again. Rippner sees the message and shoves her back in.

Lisa begs Rippner not to kill her father; he responds by telling her not to gamble with her father's life. He then notices the scar above Lisa's breast and begins asking her about the scar's history. She refuses to answer and Rippner chokes her for not being honest with him, when he had been nothing but brutally honest with her. After releasing her, he starts erasing the writing on the mirror as she gasps for breath. A flight attendant becomes suspicious of the noise in the restroom. The assassination plan is to use a portable missile launcher from a boat in a nearby harbor and fire it at the hotel. The problem is that the Deputy Secretary likes to stay in a different suite, one that faces the city. In order to assassinate him, Rippner must force Lisa to make a phone call from the in-flight phone and order the hotel staff to change his reservation from Room 3825 to Room 4080, the targeted suite facing the harbor.

After one failed attempt due to turbulence from the storm in which all the inflight phones were disrupted, Lisa successfully makes the phone call, and the hotel staff moves the politician to the targeted suite. Rippner still needs Lisa as he can't let her and her father go until he gets a phone call confirming that the Keefe family is successfully assassinated. The Secret Service checks and clears the room, allowing the Secretary to settle in with his family. After the plane lands and arrives at the gate, Lisa tells Rippner about the history of her scar before stabbing him in the throat with a pen, taking his phone and bolting off the plane into the terminal. While the flight attendants call for emergency services, Lisa runs through the airport, narrowly escaping both airport security and Rippner. She steals a SUV to give herself time to use the cell phone. She calls the hotel to warn them to evacuate immediately and that the deputy director is a target of an assassination plot. Cynthia, Lisa's assistant, and the Secret Service get the Secretary and his family out of the room just seconds before the Javelin missile is fired and hits the hotel. She attempts to call her father, but cannot as the cell phone battery dies and is then forced to drive to her father's house in order to save him before Rippner can contact the hitman.

Lisa rushes to her father's house to see if he's safe. She finds the hitman outside the front door, where she runs him over with the SUV, crashing through the front of the house. Lisa's father stumbles out of the kitchen, shocked at the man who was lying dead in the foyer and tells her that the police are already on their way. While Lisa calls her hotel to see if everything is alright, Jackson Rippner arrives and knocks out her father so that he can deal with her first. He chases her through the house with a knife and throws her down a flight of stairs. Lisa crawls down the last few steps, where a gun is lying next to the dead hitman. She threatens Jackson with the gun; he attempts to escape, but Lisa shoots him before he can. He kicks the gun out of her hand and grabs her by the hair when, finally, Lisa's father shoots Rippner as the police arrive.

At the hotel, the Homeland Secretary and the Secret Service thanks Lisa and Cynthia for saving the Secretary and his family from the assassination.