Flight: With Movies Like These It's A Wonder Why Anyone Flies Anymore

The movie Flight is good. It’s very good. But it doesn’t succeed in achieving the level of brilliance one expects with names like Robert Zemeckis and Denzel Washington attached. There are moments in the film that accomplish feats of cinematic skill unmatched by any other movie you’ve seen this year. But there are also moments that while emotionally engaging, don’t quite affect us as deeply as they might if the film makers had pushed a little more. Scenes that are meant to pack a punch only slap playfully due in most cases to writing that lacks…well lacks. 

The film stars Denzel Washington as Whip Whitaker, an airline pilot who manages to land a malfunctioning plane and consequently save most of the souls on board. It’s only after this spectacular rescue that the true drama of the film plays out as Whitaker is investigated for his suspected consumption of alcohol while on board. Due to these accusations, Whip is forced to confront the root causes of his addiction, how it has affected his life and how it could ruin his future.

 

 I acknowledge the film’s shortcomings, but I cannot say that I feel the same way about Washington’s performance at all. Stumbling, stammering, lying and denying, Whip is presented to us as a man riddled in flaws so deep that they’ve partly rotted out his humanity, leaving behind nothing more than a swaggering cad. Still, we like him. We like him out of pity. He breaks our hearts because he wants to change, but can’t. He keeps getting dragged away from that possibility by his demons. To watch him sink deeper and deeper into the hole dug by his addiction is like watching a character in a horror movie walk down a darkly lit corridor, only without irony and with an increased sense of dread. We become like every other person in Whip’s life constantly torn between admiration for his skill and horror at his behavior. The ability to pull us in and marry our emotions completely with the destiny of the character is a feat of the filmmakers yes, but the credit is due to Washington’s frank and authentic performance. 

Washington’s performance and the first 30 minutes of the film are what make it a worthy contender for the Best Picture Oscar. In the first 30 minutes the most incredible scene featuring the plane malfunctioning and finally crashing unfolds and I guarantee it will leave you speechless. Zemeckis orchestrates this spectacular sequence with the precision of a particularly enthralling Hitchcockian thriller . You’re emotional state is ravaged. Part of you wants it to end immediately, and part of you wants it to go on and on for hours. Maybe that was the problem with the rest of the film: the opening was so amazing that the rest couldn’t possibly live up to it. 

The truth is that it could have lived up to it if the words and actions of the supporting characters had some depth to them. But as it is, no one else is endowed with the dimension and layers of Whip. It comes to the point where characters seem expendable and interchangeable. We wonder why this person is here and what good is what they say. No one acts with individual intention, but rather in reaction to Whip’s erratic behavior. As a result, the film does not have the weight that it should.

But as a study of addiction, the film works well. In Whip’s journey we watch the extremes of irrational need and it burns with brutal honesty. For this reason especially, this film is worth watching.