Review of Flight (2012) by Stevenf — 28 Jul 2013

Flight masters the most sincere and meaningful way to portray a man who we want to feel sympathetic towards, but find it difficult to so, as his reckless and arrogant behaviour plagues a tragic accident that he was directly involved with. The man in question is Whip Whitaker, an airline pilot, played by Denzel Washington, who gives an engrossing and driven performance as the damaged pilot, who saves many lives after a mechanical failure results in the plane he is piloting to nose dive towards the ground, but with death comes responsibility, and Whip must answer many questions as to the events of the crash, especially when he was drunk and high while flying the plane.

The film kicks it into high gear right from the beginning, as we see Whip holding his confidence in the tightest of situations, the spectacular scenes involving the plane being upside down and the excellent cinematography within the plane create quite a frightening and realistic experience, but the power of Washington's performance excels beyond this, he seems like a man possessed when danger arises, nothing like the nervous and ashamed alcoholic we meet as the film progresses, something which he shares in common with Nicole (Kelly Reilly), a struggling drug user who comes into Whips life as he begins to feel the effects of a 'survivor guilt' scenario, something which turns him back to the bottle.

As mentioned, the film is a character study above everything else, its difficult to feel any sort of feelings of despair for the man on the screen when he will seemingly throw it back. Don Cheadle plays the attorney who is attempting to remove the toxicology report from a hearing scheduled for Whip, but as Whip continues to struggle with his demons, he leaves very little reason for anyone to help him.

Stellar performances make this film what it is, Washington goes above and beyond to portray a man who is truly shocked and saddened by what happened, even if it is proven not to be his fault, but he finds nobody there to turn to. John Goodman seeks out his funnier side again to play the dealer for Whip, giving some comic tone to the otherwise thrilling film. Where the film doesn't succeed is its final act, which seems typically paced to suit the needs of those seeking a moral ending, because this wasn't a moral film, it was driven by one man and his mission to destroy himself to try and forget, and while it can be argued this was the case for his eventual moral side kicking in, it just felt entirely out of tone.

But that aside, the film perfects telling a troubled story with great detail with an equally powerful performance from Washington, showing a man who is conflicted about life but confident in what he is good at.