Movies: Flight

Score:  ****1/2 out of ***** (A)

Long Story Short:  Denzel Washington gives an excellent, career-defining performance as main character pilot "Whip" Whitaker in Robert Zemeckis' Flight.  An edge-of-your seat opening gets the audience's attention and then turns it to the struggles of one man - seemingly a hero - with his own demons.  Supported and enriched by a great cast forming Whip's circle of friends and enemies.  Thanks to Denzel's performance and a fine balance between believability and inspiration, Flight soars into its place among the year's best.


The beginning of November signals the start of a nice long run of films I'm interested in seeing.  I caught this Flight last Monday; last night I saw the new James Bond movie (review coming next weekend!); my local theater finally released Perks of Being a Wallflower; and Lincoln is already out now, too.  First thing's first, though:  I saw the trailer for this during another theater trip, and the premise intrigued me.  Plus, Denzel is a great actor and when he stars in the more "serious" films like Training Day and American Gangsters, the result are strong.  With a good score on Rotten Tomatoes (76%), I decided to see it.  Flight was directed by Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Cast Away) and stars Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle, and John Goodman.

Flight introduces the main character, Whip Whitaker (Washington), waking up in a hotel room with bottles of alcohol strewn about and an attractive young woman casually walking around naked.  After ingesting a line of cocaine, we watch Whip stride out of the hotel - dressed for duty as an airplane pilot.  Whip is the captain of a short flight from Florida to Atlanta, from where he will debark to greet his estranged family.  Whip shows off his skills to his young, inexperienced co-pilot, but midflight he is awakened from a nap by turbulence and all hell breaks loose.

When the dust settles, Whip is a public hero, saving the vast majority of the lives on his plane.  But the pilot's union, represented by Charlie Anderson (Bruce Greenwood) quietly informs Whip of a positive toxicology report taken and summons attorney Hugh Lang (Cheadle) to defend him.  Whip grapples with his continuing addiction and finds himself pulled different directions by old faces, like dealer Harling (Goodman), and new faces, such as fellow addict Nicole (Kelly Reilly).  Both the NTSB and Whip search for the answer to this question:  is he a hero or a villain?

Flight sports a stellar cast, and it is led by a phenomenal turn from Denzel Washington.  The focus of the film is entirely on Whip; as the character went, so too did the rest of the film.  I'm pleased to say that Denzel knocked it out of the park with a moving and memorable performance.  Part of Whip's character is the typical calm, collected Denzel - but Whip is also a man utterly controlled by his addiction.  Whip can be a charming, thoughtful guy, but when he is confronted by others over his addiction, he lashes out in fierce, yet vulnerable, self-defense.  Beyond Whip himself, the film sets up his relationships with his family, friends and co-workers superbly and Denzel drops right into the middle of those interactions like he has lived that life for years.

While Denzel is the focus and the star, he has tremendous supporting players around him.  Kelly Reilly (whose face you'll likely recognize) does a great job in her role as a random acquaintance of Whip's, keeping control in a role that easily could have been overacted.  Goodman has kind of a similar role to the one he had in Argo, actually, and he's just as good - and funny - here.  Whip's co-workers Charlie (Greenwood) and Hugh (Cheadle) master their characters' superficial compassion and the ruthlessness they reveal only behind (sometimes literally) closed doors.  One last role that deserves mention is one I can't even find on IMDB - he's a cancer patient in Whip's hospital and provides an electric few minutes.

The hook of Flight, and what the studio surely hoped would get people to the theater, is the plane crash.  And certainly, the film does not slight this scene in the least, producing tension about on par with some of the better scenes in Argo.  But it's only the take off (pun intended) for a film about, as I described in Denzel's acting, a man dealing with addiction and perhaps his final reckoning.  Seeing how this man, a capable guy esteemed in his profession, brought to his knees time and again is powerful, as is seeing the results of his addiction, due to the crash or otherwise, on other people in his life.  Even with all of this serious stuff, Flight manages to sneak in some really good humor to help prevent things from getting depressing.  In fact, one of the miracles of the film is that it isn't depressing despite the subject matter.  A final note:  although the score is by Alan Silvestri, who did the beautiful themes in Forrest Gump, I can't remember any of the music except a few excerpts of Rolling Stones hits.

***

Put simply, even in a particularly strong year for film, Flight is one of my favorites so far.  A huge reason for this, I'll say it again, is Denzel Washington's bravura performance.  Another part is that it fits into a style of film that I really like.  After all, this is the director who did Forrest Gump, one of my all-time favorites.  Like in that film, Flight manages to straddle that tight-rope line between showing characters and their behavior that the audience can believe with characters and behavior that we want to see.  Nine times out of ten, if not more, a film does one or the other, either slipping into cheese and taking us out of the film's world - or being so real and bleak and depressing that we desperately want to get out of the film's world.  Flight achieves that rare balance, in my opinion.  Great main character, great relationships, great humor, a great range of emotional responses - oh, and a great ending, too.  Highly recommended - see it in the theater if you can (we need more films like this!) but rent or stream it later if you can't.