“Red Eye,” “Red Eye,” where were you when we needed you most?

In July, when the scariest thing we had to contend with was the idea that Johnny Depp was channeling Michael Jackson?

Heck, where were you in June, when Christian Bale forgot that Batman was supposed to have a sense of humor?

Wes Craven’s efficient, smart and above all competent killer-on-a-cross-country-flight thriller bursts into the tail end of summer like that last “suicide drill” in August football practice. It’s a wind-sprint-brisk 85 minutes of a situation we can believe, characters who aren’t supermen (or women) and a sharp third-act acceleration of suspense.

Teach this one in film schools. Maybe it could save us from all the stupid, nobody-would-do-that plot turns, flaccid formula screenwriting and thrillers that run so long they lose their thrills.

Rachel McAdams, left, stars as a hotel manager who is coerced by a ruthless killer (Cillian Murphy) into helping with a political assassination in director Wes Craven's thriller Red

Start with “Foreshadowing 101: How to get everything you need to know about your heroine in the opening credits.”

That’s Rachel McAdams of “Wedding Crashers” as Lisa, an assistant manager of a Miami hotel, on her way home from Dallas after the funeral of her grandmother. We meet her in a photo. A wallet’s being stolen from a night table. There are two pictures of her, in her graduation gown, and with her field hockey team.

Lisa is cool under pressure. We see that in how she handles testy and demanding “regular” customers, by long distance, by cell.

She has a scar. We spot that when she has to change after a tourist spills her latte all over her in the airport.

And she’s a little lonely. She meets a guy in line waiting for a plane. She has a drink with him. He seems charming. But he’s not who he seems.

Cillian Murphy of “28 Days Later” and “Batman Begins” is Jack, or “Jackson.” He sits next to her on the plane.

“What’re the odds, huh?”

Just don’t do what women sizing up a prospective date do. Don’t ask him what he does for a living.

“Government overthrows, high-profile assassinations.”

He’s not kidding. He knows her. He has some demands. How Lisa responds, on a crowded plane, to a life-threatening situation, is the bulk of the movie.

The novelty of this Carl Ellsworth script is that it never has a moment in which you shake your head at Lisa’s actions. Every move she makes, from disbelief and discomfort to terror and grief and – very quickly – action, is nothing you would need to add a disclaimer to at the end of your movie.

You’re taken hostage with threats against you and yours, with nowhere to escape to? Be like Lisa. Yes, in other words. Try this at home.

Murphy, with his Nazi-blue eyes, can switch from sweet to sinister with just a re-setting of his jaw and a subtle change in lighting. He’s a worthy foe, a scary dude, and while he’s not stupid, he’s that rare movie criminal who doesn’t have Hannibal Lecter’s IQ.

McAdams, eyes-to-die-for aside, is solidly real as this assertive, workshop-trained middle manager. She deals with difficult people such as Jack all the time. She spots his few mistakes. How will she “handle” this?

Rachel McAdams portrays a Miami hotel worker who gets thrown into a political assassination scheme in the white-knuckle thriller Red

Don’t look for pithy one-liners. Real people in crisis, heroes and villains, don’t have time to think of those. The dialogue is downright banal, actually one of the film’s few shortcomings.

Don’t look for stunts, escapes and the like that defy the laws of physics and the FAA.

It’s not filled with surprises. The film just goes about its business with the calm, cool efficiency of, well, a hotel clerk Russell Crowe has never met.

And that’s why a genre that has gone sadly Starbucks over the years gets a refreshing jolt of caffeine from “Red Eye.” It’s one mean cuppa Joe, a thriller with no foam, no milk and – in this lackluster summer – no Equal.