DramaMovie Club

Flight: Let’s Roll the Plane!

Hello everybody! Today we have Denzel Washington’s drama Flight.

FLIGHT

DIRECTOR: Robert Zemeckis

STARRING:  Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle, Kelly Reilly, John Goodman, Bruce Greenwood, Melissa Leo

GENRE: Drama

YEAR: 2012

COUNTRY: United States

Whip Whitaker is a commuter airline pilot. While on a flight from Orlando to Atlanta something goes wrong and the plane starts to fly erratically. With little choice Whip crashes the plane and saves almost all on board. When he wakes up in the hospital, his friend from the airline union introduces him to a lawyer who tells him there’s a chance he could face criminal charges because his blood test reveals that he is intoxicated with alcohol and cocaine. He denies being impaired, so while an investigation is underway, he is told to keep his act together. However, letting go of his addiction is not as easy as it seems…

Flight follows the story of Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington) who is an alcoholic, drug addict pilot who crashes a plane, but kills 6 people. Flight analyzes Whip and his addictions and we are allowed to see what his life is like. This analysis is done expertly, even if the film doesn’t ever reach the pace or excitement of the plane flight (the first act). The film is shot amazingly in the first act (especially when the plane is upside down), but then there isn’t anything special in the remaining acts. Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle, and John Goodman performed spectacularly and they definitely were the right actors for their characters.

Flight suffers from a huge pacing problem after the first act. Zemeckis intends to give us a slightly more depraved version of Washington’s usual charismatic hero, then pull the rug out from him. But Flight‘s true downward spiral is its own loss of momentum. Flight turns out to be a disappointingly standard addiction story in its second half also serves as a reminder that Hollywood tends to be more invested in these types of self-serious movies than most actual audiences.

PROS:

  • Character analysis.
  • Perfect cast choices.
  • Amazing shooting during first act.

CONS:

  • Second and third act pacing.
  • Too little coverage on controversial themes.

SCORE: 8.0 / 10

If you have any suggestions for films/TV/Games/Music for me to review, drop me a comment! Remember: Like Media In Review @ https://www.facebook.com/MediaInReview?ref=hl Follow Media in Review @ https://twitter.com/Media_In_Review.

Brandon Stuhr

Who am I? Just some guy who decided to start writing on the Internet years ago and now operates his own brand and site. Owner/Operator of Modern Neon Media, I make all kinds of niche content to suit my interests at the time. DIY Enthusiast, Brewmaster extraordinaire, and avid freak for geek culture. Follow on my socials for a more "on" version of me.

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