Forget what you think you know about this movie.

Rather like Jaws kept a generation from swimming late at night, Flight will certainly make you reconsider flying in a storm, if ever flying again. Shortly after establishing that Captain Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington) hasn’t slept after a big night of drugs, sex and far too much to drink, he has a beer chaser for breakfast then launches Southjet 227 in severe weather. It’s one thing that against the odds he gets his plane safely into the sky, another that he celebrates with vodka and orange. And just as we start questioning whether Whitaker is a lucky fool or some kind of idiot with a death wish, his plane starts falling apart in mid-air.

Robert Zemeckis (Back To The Future, Forrest Gump) isn’t a name you’d necessarily associate with action movies yet the visceral intensity of this opening scene stands among the best. Whitaker pulls every trick in the book along with some yet to be written as he tries to keep 227 airborne. It is chilling. Yet what initially appears to be a story akin to Airport – will Washington's hero be blamed for the failure of 227 – Flight quickly becomes a much deeper and more satisfying experience about fighting personal demons. As it rounds out into a much larger exploration of personal responsibility, not only for the welfare of others but of one’s own, big questions are asked: when is a lie one lie to many? When must truth prevail? Few have easy answers.

These kernels are classic Zemeckis; they were the essence of Gump and to a lesser extent Castaway. Once polished then stacked against a bravura performances, notably Washington's washed up Whitaker, the whole takes on an amazing gravitas. You want to believe in Whip and Washington makes it easy even when his character ducks and weaves his way past unavoidable truth and fate’s inevitable hand. He's amazing to watch, enabling you to believe even the most bare faced of Whitaker’s lies despite the stark reality of his life. Then just when it all seems too much amid lingering scenes of incredible discomfort, the seesaw tips to the broad levity of John Goodman's wide eyed dealer.

Although Zemeckis and screenwriter John Gatins succumb to a neatly tied, Shawshank ending that arrives about ten minutes late, they otherwise defy expectation. Just as Washington reaches deep to deliver something truly fresh and vital, so too Zemeckis who brings a sense of the unexpected to a familiar genre, underlining how much Flight is not the film you think it is.

// COLIN FRASER

Previewed at Paramount Pictures Theatrette, Sydney, on Monday 21 January, 2013moviereview colin fraser film movie australia review critic flicks

Imagine being on a routine 55-minute flight between a couple of major cities when the jet’s hydraulics fail and all hell breaks loose. This is the storyline in Robert Zemeckis’s (Back To The Future / Forrest Gump) latest action drama Flight, starring Denzel Washington in a role that is one of his best and has earned him a Best Actor nomination in this year’s Oscars. He plays a character that many in Hollywood would shun - an alcoholic, drug abusing commercial pilot! OMG!

The film opens with Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington, two-time Academy Award winner for Best Actor for Training Day and Glory) imbibing only minutes before he has to head off to pilot a 9 a.m. flight to Atlanta. The scene is set as his flight attendant girlfriend Katrina (Nadine Velazquez – My Name Is Earl / Rogue Assassin) sashays around the hotel room wearing her best birthday suit and doing a duet with Whip using booze and Columbian marching powder (they need it because they don’t have time for breakfast!).

The plane takes off in a hideous storm and Whip manages to keep everything under control even though his co-pilot Ken (Brian Geraghty – The Hurt Locker / Bobby) is suspicious of Whip’s capabilities. These scenes will have you on the edge of your seat but wait, there’s worse to come, and when it does it is totally believable and absolutely gut-wrenching. When an investigation is held to examine the events that have taken place on board, Denzel takes ‘flight’. He is simply superb as he goes deeper into a dark hole that is swirling with alcohol and drug abuse. He has a broken marriage, a broken relationship with his son, and a broken career, even though to many he is a hero.

Flight is a very watchable study in alcoholism – the title refers as much to the flight from the truth that all alcoholics go through as much as it is about the flight itself. The film does get a bit weird in parts, especially the relationship Whip has with a recovering junkie, Nicole (Kelly Reilly – Sherlock Holmes), but it all works in the end. Melissa Leo (The Fighter / Frozen River) delivers a brilliant performance as the head courtroom prosecutor, a role that she makes the absolute most of considering it is relatively minor. Another highlight is the always excellent John Goodman (Argo / The Artist) playing a local drug dealer. The beauty of this film is that it works on many levels. Although it is a bit drawn out and a tad mawkish in parts, it is still a good yarn and worth it for the performances, the retro soundtrack and the thrilling plane crash.

// SALT

Previewed at Paramount Pictures Theatrette, Sydney, on Wednesday 16 January, 2013
moviereview colin fraser film movie australia review critic flicks