"Flight" (2012)

The Only Drunken Son of A Bitch to Land this Airplane

"Flight" (2012) Review

Oftentimes in film it is helpful to actually like the protagonist; to find some worthwhile aspect to their character no matter how loathsome. This is oftentimes a difficult task, especially in a film about the collapse of a man's life as he struggles with alcoholism, yet it is ultimately the film's responsibility to overcome this challenge. This is not something which happened in Robert Zemeckis' 2012 film "Flight".

The film opens on the morning of a flight from Orlando to Atlanta and quickly reveals Whip Whitaker's (Denzel Washington) character flaw; his dependence on alcohol and cocaine as he consumes both in the company of one of the flight attendants, Katerina Marquez (Nadine Velazquez) who walks around the room searching for her panties for the first few minutes, which is about as exciting as the film gets. As revealed in every trailer for the film, the plane has a mechanical breakdown and the plane heads into a nosedive from which pilot Whitaker manages to land the plane saving all but six fateful souls on board as he handles the situation with an unconventional approach; mainly turning the airplane upside-down to try and regain some stability. Whitaker later insists that he's the only one who could have landed the plane, which arrogant as it may be, is crucial to Washington's character arc as he moves from being free yet imprisoned towards, well... the other direction. From the field where the plane is crashed, the plot seems to explode as questions emerge of Whitaker's alcoholism and union leader Charlie Anderson (Bruce Greenwood) tries to conceal Whitaker's true nature with the aid of Hugh Lang (Don Cheadle) a high profile lawyer from Chicago. As the story continues, Whitaker's dependence on alcohol becomes more apparent, as does his need for cocaine which is provided by his noble friend Harling Mays (John Goodman) as new revelations in the investigation of the crash emerge. Intermixed with this awfully predictable plot is a small and incomplete love story between Whitaker and Nicole (Kelly Reilly), a heroin addict who begins to turn her life around just as she meets Whitaker at the hospital. The plot sounds complicated yet ends up seeming devoid of meaning as it attempts to take a standard eighty minute long film and stretch it out with as much emotional weight as it can muster. To help in this task, John Gatins the writer of such classics as "Reel Steel" (2011) utilizes Jesus freaks and the concept of God's hand in the crash which remains throughout the film in-cohesive with the plot and tacked on to attempt to engage the audience in thought. This sounds a bit too harsh, yet when it comes to a film which wants to condor it's self Oscar worthy material (because honestly, what other reason is there to release a film like this at a time of year like this), then that film needs to be up to snuff when it comes to content. Though aiding his inevitable bid for best original screenplay was the dialogue which did not seem at all stagey and helped to strengthen his hollow characters.

At the helm of this Titanic, Robert Zemeckis, the director whom the world has to thank for "Back to the Future" (1985), a film which was actually very memorable and wonderful on every repeated viewing, save the forced ones where the film feels like nails in one's eye sockets. This film follows a recent lineup of directorial failures for Zemeckis including "Polar Express" (2004) "Beowulf" (2007)*, and "A Christmas Carol" (2009), and was, though markedly better than any other in that awful cannon, was still not remarkable. Zemeckis showed a clear understanding of the medium with very traditional shot establishment and some interesting cinematography, yet little original messaging through shots. His 'weather is a force of god' bit with storm clouds following Whitaker around was obvious and a bit too overt for it to actually be considered clever.

The film's strongest suit, it's acting, was actually very commendable yet not Oscar worthy. While Denzel and Cheadle, the two strongest actors in the film, try to engage the viewer, their screen presence is not nearly enough. Though both give commanding performances, their characters are not actually good characters, nor are they well conceived as they are introduced and hardly change throughout the course of the film, Mr. Washington's character only changing in the last five minutes of the seemingly endless picture. In addition to this, the audience is not told anything about the characters, save a few details about their lives and a few obvious motivations. All of this leaves the audience wondering whether or not they should actually care about either of these men muchness anyone in the film as they are all so obviously constructions of a forcibly imagined reality that they come off as simply characters and not actual people. This all being said (and really that's more plot than anything) the acting is fine, but surely not the season's best.

The film ultimately felt like a waste of time and energy. This could be said about many films, yet this film in particular was disappointing. Thought the film tried adamantly to entertain, it felt like absolutely nothing was accomplished in the seemingly eight hours I sat in the theater, and whatever did change in Captain Whitaker's life seemed utterly pointless as I, the viewer, didn't care if he changed because I didn't like him to begin with. In short, the film, in my opinion, was doomed from the beginning and probably needed to be rethought. This sentiment hurt a bit more when I remembered I was charged ten dollars for my ticket.

As the credits began to roll, I was a bit angry, yet ultimately remembered that, in some small way, the film had succeeded in making me sit in a theater and watch the story of a man's life fall apart for over two hours. So I'll leave on this note, see the movie, formulate your own opinion, and if you like it, than you like it. It will most likely not win any Oscars (if this year's batch of Oscar contenders is at all competitive), but it could be your favorite movie of all time. And that's okay!

Flight is Rated R for for drug and alcohol abuse, language, sexuality/nudity and an intense action sequences.

Stars: 5/10

* Interestingly enough, in the trivia for "Flight", one person made the comment that "Flight" was Zemeckis' first live action film since "Cast Away," which I immediately reacted to by marking that Beowulf was live action then, upon reexamining the film realized that no, in fact it was creepy cartoons; a favorite of Zemeckis' which is largely credited with being the downfall of "Mars Needs Moms" (2011), the worst financial loss for a film until "John Carter" (2012) came out a year later.