Main cast: Denzel Washington (Captain William “Whip” Whitaker), Don Cheadle (Hugh Lang), Kelly Reilly (Nicole Maggen), John Goodman (Harling Mays), Bruce Greenwood (Charlie Anderson), Brian Geraghty (First Officer Ken Evans), Tamara Tunie (Margaret Thomason), Nadine Velazquez (Katerina Marquez), Peter Gerety (Avington Carr), Garcelle Beauvais (Deana Coleman), and Melissa Leo (Ellen Block)
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Flight has won many awards, but maybe it’s because I’m in a ward and feeling not that amazing when I watch this, but I don’t see what the big deal is.
It starts out great. Captain William “Whip” Whitaker performs an unheard-of maneuver of flying SouthJet Air Flight 227 upside down after the plane sustains damage due to air turbulence. While there are lives lost, many more would have been lost were not for Whip’s action, and he is hailed as a hero.
That is, until the National Transportation Safety Board starts looking into the matter, and tests show that Whip was as high as a kite on cocaine and alcohol when he was flying that plane. Indeed, Whip is an addict, his addiction destroyed his previous marriage, but he is adamant that he controls his addiction, not vice versa—that same old song and dance.
Indeed, after the exciting airplane drama in the early parts of the movie, it soon settles down into a drama about a man trying to deny that he has an addiction problem even as things fall apart around him. He strikes up a new romance with recovering addict Nicole Maggen, but she is trying to stay clean and soon finds it increasingly difficult to be with a man that insists on drinking and getting high all the time.
Of course, the NTSB investigation is breathing down his neck, and despite the best efforts of his old friend Charlie Anderson and lawyer Hugh Lang to make sure that Whip at the very least projects a sober front while the investigation is going on, things are looking rough.
Denzel Washington gives an understated, dignified, and arresting performance, which actually works because his portrayal of Whip is what the movie needs as my goodness, the melodrama and sentimentality are off the charts. The movie really wants to drive home the fact that addicts are not in control of their inner demons, and drives home that point with all the subtlety of a hammer right between my eyes.
At the same time, the movie doesn’t want me to feel too much negative emotions, so it makes the extra effort to actually remove obstacles from Whip’s path in this story. The witnesses that can damn him with their testimonies are either dead in the crash or are more than happy to lie for him. The main conflicts here are Whip’s own refusal to admit that he has a problem and his rocky relationship with Nicole later in the movie. Oh, and his relationship with his estranged kid from his previous marriage, but that one is barely a thing here.
In the end, it’s nice that Whip gets his act together and bravely faces the consequences of his addiction. However, the movie cheapens this by drilling between my eyes an overly long sequence showcasing how everything is now looking up for Whip because he has finally seeked help and accepted the consequences of his actions—Nicole loves him again, people are coming around on him again, his kid wants to reconnect again, et cetera—that the whole thing is more of a one-note Hallmark feel-good movie than anything else.
Ultimately, this is a watchable movie with solid performances from the cast that elevate the Muzak-drenched script. Its unwillingness to become even a little dark or morally gray, however, makes addiction seem like it’d magically go away and then life will be amazing again once one gets help for it. In other words, it’s just a feel-good movie, at the cost of depths and complexity, nothing more.
