A mess of a thriller that had good intentions but just boils itself down to a generic action venture.
You know its bad when you start writing the review before the film's even finished.
Ryan Reynolds plays Matt, a low ranking CIA officer in charge of one of many safe houses and is looking for a promotion. As fate would have it, the CIA have to put a high-risk target in his care, an information trader Torbin Frost (Denzel Washington). But when the safe house is attacked, he goes on the run with a reluctant Torbin.
Honestly, the concept intrigued me. We have Reynolds and Washington playing roles fitted perfectly for them, a possibly dialogue-heavy thriller with a potentially claustrophobic atmosphere, a "safe house" (the clue is in the name...)
But no... the actual safe house barely features after the fifteen minute mark, and after that the film becomes an off-the-rails action chase film of the mid 1990s. We have constant car chases, constant gun fights and betrayals, our hero Matt (and the audience by extension) totally in the dark as to who persistently finds them, attacks them and attempts to kill them. Even Washington, doing his usual best, can't recover this uninteresting sequence of chases; so little of the film is dedicated to slowing down and letting the characters breathe.
For a thriller that obviously wants to keep you in the dark, by doing so it in fact makes itself incredibly predictable. With so few potential masterminds, and the ridiculous amounts of foreshadowing, you will know why everything is happening and who is behind it all long before Matt ever does.
A missed opportunity if ever there was one. This could have been a great example of characters parrying and fighting with words, involving mind games and intrigue (they set it up as much!) but it all dissolves into a noisy, rapidly edited action sequence. Quite disappointing.
I give it two cocoa cups mostly because of the two leads, who do fit their roles well and play it out perfectly for what they have been given!
What has happened to Robert Zemeckis?
In my A Christmas Carol review recently I asked the question, what has happened to Robert Zemeckis's brain? Finally though, he now leaves the awful "realistic" CGI animation and returns to direct his first live action film since Castaway in 2000. Yeah, it has been that long.
Unfortunately, I am still asking "What has happened to his brain," as Flight is complete garbage.
Denzel Washington plays airline pilot Whip Whitaker, who is a blazing alcoholic and cocaine addict, yet his lifelong ambition of lying about this has never been found out. But when
his plane crashes and his skills prevent everyone on board from dying, his true nature is called into question.
I hate, hate films that deceive me. Flight's trailer did not show this film for what it is. The trailer made it out to be Washington's character battling to clear his name since he saved one-hundred people. It doesn't mention a slew of laborious drinking binges, drug-use and our protagonist being a total waster, devoid of any likeable traits. Most of this film is constructed of separate scenes were Whip is offered help to clear his name, only for him to shoot them down in angry arguments that often rise from nowhere.
The film opens with two disjointed plots: Whip's last flight taking off and the crash, and a herione addict who's sick of being an addict only for her to quickly overdose anyway. What does this have to do with anything? Well, Whip has a relationship with this girl after meeting her at the hospital. So, she's his redemption right? Nope. Nothing of the sort happens, he just mopes and gets drunk consistently.
I... I cannot comprehend how unpleasant this film was to watch, as a story and as a piece of film making. The protagonist is completely unlikeable, the supporting cast appear to come and go without any influence on him or with any credibility to themselves. The conclusion is a giant "Well, duh!" moment; a predictable narrative black hole as I spent the entire film thinking "get on with it".
I have no idea what genre this is; it leaps from serious drama to black comedy to investigative thriller, and as such, the tone is completely lost.
I wasn't engaged with the character, I had no emotional response to anything he did because all of his actions were negative and only seem to prove he was a useless and reckless addict, to the point where his incredible piloting skills (his only redeeming act at the start of the film) felt worthless! Th
en there was John Goodman. Who appears to have wandered into the wrong movie.
Seriously, how Denzel can be nominated for an Academy Award with this performance is beyond me; it has to be his least engaging and laziest part yet. Unstoppable, his film about a runaway train, is better than this!
Additional Marshmallows: You may have noticed, Flight isn't worth your time and certainly not your money.
You may be wondering why it even has 1.5/5, well, that's because the actual plane crash (you know, the only part that is shown in the trailer?) is spectacular!
A simple but compelling story based off true events about overcoming racial prejudices in the 1930s with an intellectual perspective.
How intellectual? Well, maybe not quite as rigorous or risky as it could have been with the ideas involved.
Directed by and starring Denzel Washington as a college professor in Texas leading four children in a national debate team, going on to challenge Harvard University's own team. However his own intense political views and determination could threaten the lives of his students.
I cannot say I was greatly surprised by any of the turns of events in the film, and while a great cast do provide the perfect emotional performances, I wasn't as moved here as I have been in other films of this genre.
The film gathers its emotional strength by having younger, more vulnerable actors involved, and this is very effective (especially alongside Washington's crusader) to a point. Forest Whitaker also turns in a good performance as well as his son, who plays the youngest debater on the team, but unfortunately, his role was the most transparent. While the other three took the debate spotlight through the entire film, his character was relegated to the sidelines, even deemed unfit to debate before an audience. Hm, I cannot think what the climax of this story will be. Nope, no idea.
It does its best to be a moving, provocative story, and it does have great tension in particularly dark scenes, but if you let it sink in it feels a little too... deliberate; an intellectual properly made palpable for mass consumption. Was it bad? No. It is a good movie, and I suggest you watch it if you like these sorts of dramas (or are a fan of Washington) it just doesn't feel as challenging or intense as it could have been.
Additional Marshmallows: Wait... Oprah Winfrey was the Producer? What?
