
But that’s just it—Denzel’s cool
here comes from a bottle. That, and the lines of
coke he snorts to perk up.
Director Robert Zemeckis (BACK TO
THE FUTURE) has orchestrated some terrific-looking, white-knuckle plane crashes before—most notably in his
last live-action feature, CAST AWAY—but he ups the ante here. Despite Whip’s blood alcohol content hovering at
twice the legal limit for operating a car, he says and does all the right
stuff after a freak equipment malfunction cripples his SouthJet airliner.
Invoking the black box that
records every word uttered in a cockpit, Whip instructs a stewardess to say
goodbye to her son—just in case. Then he
has his newbie copilot drop the landing gear and ailerons to increase drag, and
dumps the fuel to lighten the craft and minimize the likelihood of a fiery
impact. And then he inverts the plane,
flying upside-down to slow their rate of descent. One of the wings cleaves a church steeple
before Whip plows the jet into a field.
That’s just Act One.
But FLIGHT is less about piloting 737s
than heeding the primal stress response of “fight-or-flight” you read about in
Biology 101. After years of running from
himself, Whip must learn to confront his demons and stop the cycle of abuse
that may or may not have contributed to the disaster. Applying the brakes on a lifetime of runaway lies
doesn’t come easy for the pilot, especially when airport bureaucracy seems so
willing to clean up his mess.
Whip awakens with minor injuries
and is told his quick-thinking saved almost all “102 souls” aboard his plane. But he knows after watching news broadcasts
and cell phone video replays of the crash that people will come to him wanting answers. Or an explanation. Anything that'll force logic's template on the event.
The cancer patient who joins Whip
and heroin addict Nicole (Kelly Reilly) for a smoke in a hospital
stairwell suggests the “accident”—and their chance meeting—is the work of a
higher power.
“It’s an act of God,” he
surmises. “All that random stuff in your
life.”
God, chance, providence…. Nicole
thinks it’s the chemo talking. Whip
doesn’t care, so long as he gets his fix.
And he falls off the wagon (and out of the Lazy Boy) not long after sequestering himself at his
grandfather’s farmhouse. Nicole plays at
guardian angel, but Whip’s hip-deep in denial and only tells people—including
union rep Charlie (Bruce Greenwood) and defense attorney Hugh (Don Cheadle)—what
they want to hear.
Never mind Captain Whitaker’s
toxicology report, says Hugh. The ten
stone-cold sober test pilots who recreated the fateful flight in a simulator couldn't replicate Whip’s
stunt. Faulty equipment doomed the
airliner, he argues. Whip saved it. And Hugh could convince the Feds, too, if
only his client would dry out for a week.
Whip’s coping skills are anything
but miraculous during the National Transportation Safety Board inquest. He belittles Nicole, causes a scene at his
ex-wife’s house, and further alienates his estranged son on the eve of his own
hearing. He awkwardly approaches his
stewardess and now-paralyzed copilot to gauge whether they’ll incriminate him;
they know he’s a boozer.
“Tell them it was just like any other day,” Whip offers sheepishly.
FLIGHT is a curious, volatile, decidedly
adult-oriented character study that questions why we don’t exercise more
control over the things in our lives we actually could. How much of our day
is truly left to chance? What if the door
hadn’t been left open? Did I leave the oven on? What if you’d said this or done that? Would the outcome be any different? That fork in the road—if a tree were destined
to fall on my car had I gone left, will misfortune still find me on the
right?
The soundtrack features Barenaked
Ladies (“Alcohol”) and Rolling Stones (“Sympathy for the Devil”)—good tunes for
the mea culpa crowd. Who among us hasn’t
let a little lie swell until the levee breaks and we’re left soaking wet?
This one'll go gangbusters as an in-flight movie in a couple months.
3 out of 4 stars.
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