FILM
Flight
(15) 138mins
★★★✩✩
IN A NUTSHELL
Denzel Washington is head and shoulders above the story he inhabits, which, despite bells and whistles, is a story about a self-pitying drunk.
REVIEW
Despite a terrifying plane crash that sees hero pilot Whip Whitaker lauded for his life-saving actions, this is not a conventional disaster movie.
That is because the disaster at its heart is Whitaker himself. The wreckage is not a trail of gnarled metal ploughed into a field in Atlanta but a string of neglected loved ones who have long since given up on the veteran pilot.
An anachronism of flight jargon results in talk of "lost souls" rather than fatal casualties. They mean the same thing, but not to Whip who lives, but heartlessly, and with demons.
For William "Whip" Whitaker is an alcoholic. And the heroism at the start of the movie is an unfortunate piece of luck that looks likely to keep his well-constructed deceptions in order.
Director Robert Zemeckis makes the terror of the crash real and impressive. But, this event, which book-ends the film, is a sideshow.
Ultimately, this is a heavy-handed tale about a drunk, an unappealing anti-hero who has exhausted the patience and loyalty of his friends and colleagues and is running out of time.
As investigators begin to probe how the accident happened, so John Gaitlin's sharp script - drawn from his own experiences of addiction - asks how it didn't happen before. Whitaker is a whip-and-top, bouncing wildly from one near-miss to the next.
Zemeckis said: "The suspense in the movie comes from the uncertainty of what the characters are going to do, how they are going to respond. The anticipation comes from not knowing what the characters will do from scene to scene."
Victims of his sozzled, pitiful charm include Nicole, a recovering addict played with touching vulnerability by Kelly Reilly, and union rep Charlie Anderson (Bruce Greenwood) who stands by his pal long after he's lost the right to ask anyone for anything.
There are few people who can hover between good and bad and keep us guessing like Denzel Washington, who takes a third Oscar nomination for his journey into the heart of darkness.
We've seen Washington in uniform before, with moral authority and courage, we've seen him as an everyman against the odds, and we've seen him as a fast-dealing shyster. We've seen that winning, thousand watt smile a thousand times.
He calls on all these attributes to make Whip complex, compelling and, occasionally, sympathetic character.
This is all is to his great credit because Whip, of course, is not complex. He is a boorish, cruel drunk, steeped in the ways of denial and always, always taking the path of least resistance, especially if it leads to a vodka bottle.
The movie is flawed because of this. We get the thrill of a plane crash. We get the brief witness stand drama but at its heart, this is a film about a drunk, being drunk, occasionally trying not to be drunk but conceding to drunkenness too often to be of any use.
