Review of Flight (2012) by Chef Jacqueline P — 29 Sep 2014

"Flight" is a movie about a doomed flight of a commercial airliner of ~100 passenger which took off on a stormy day with a mechanical fault. Worst of all, it was piloted by an inexperienced assistant with a captain who didn't sleep much the night before the flight, drunk with blood alcohol twice the legal limit and drugged with coccaine. The dive and emergency landing killed only very few; simulation attempted by multiple other captains, well-rested, not drunk and not drugged, all failed to save anyone onboard by the way.

The question is: should this alcoholic captain be a hero who performed a miraculous landing, or be in jail for being drunk and high on coccaine at work? This is a simple moral dilemma. The pilot broke the rule, he got caught because of the terrible accident, and he should be jailed accordingly as anyone who broke the same rule. But then, if I am ever in such a doomed flight, I want him, howevere sleepy/drunk/high on drug, to pilot the plane.

The captain also had a moral dilemma, to confess that he is an alcoholic and be sentenced for breaking the law, or to lie when knowing lying will clear him of any charges. He didn't lie. And it complicated things. Why couldn't he tell of one final lie about his alcoholism and trouble with drugs?

The film could be done better, but the story and the impact of the underlying moral lessions could not have been better. Danzel, as Danzel, was excellent but the tension and torment was , as complex as they were, too subtle. His character is arrogant, shameless ("I chose to drink") and remorseless. He knew he is a hero for saving lives but at the same time he clearly knew his alcoholism is a problem. We saw him clear the old house of alcohol. We saw he filled the house again with alcohol. We knew he refrained from alcohol only to be drunk again at the federal hearing. He struggled. But I struggled to sense that until he decided to come clean at the hearing when pressed about his opinion that perhaps the flight attendant, someone he could see as his "second wife", was drunk. It took just one question to break him. Why?

I wouldn't have thought twice to lie that one final time. But I didn't take that moral flight. The story didn't help me take that moral flight. I wished to have got more from this movie.