Welcome to the hub of the widespread Oscar season. The year has offered no masterpieces to behold, but the best has appeared in the forms of The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, and The Master. The Academy is all but guaranteed to ignore the former two thrilling films that elevate the term superhero, so as of yet the best film of the year to have a chance of recognition has been the fantastic, if flawed film, The Master.
While that movie was introduced earlier in the year than what is expected for a film of its class, we are entering the brief, if deep waters of the two-month holiday season, where the more artistic films will finally be unveiled to the mass audiences, and Flight earns the honor as being the first to arrive.
Flight is directed by Robert Zemeckis, a filmmaker who has achieved tremendous amounts of respect from sci-fi and drama fans alike for past greats such as the Back to the Future trilogy, Cast Away, and Forrest Gump, but has strayed from such winning material with his tangent into the undesirable medium of animation, mo-cap. His four most recent animation attempts have not been up to par. Featuring characters that looked like rotting corpses, the two holiday movies, The Polar Express and A Christmas Carol, as well as Beowulf, received mixed responses, and his latest directing credit before now, Mars Needs Moms, was a monstrous stink bomb, as well as a major box office failure, a product of a series of poor decisions from Disney (before amazing comebacks like the purchases of Marvel and Star Wars, but I won’t get into that).
Considering what he has explored in recent years, Flight is an extremely welcome, and refreshing return to form to see from Robert Zemeckis. Boosted by the ever-dependable Denzel Washington, Flight examines the life of Whip Whitaker, an incredibly skilled pilot who miraculously lands a plane in the safest way possible, but faces legal consequences in the aftermath for his blood testing positive for alcohol and cocaine while sitting in the captain’s chair.
The premise of this film may sound basically like a courtroom drama that explores gray moral areas, but it is actually an exploration of the effects of alcoholism, and it is a dark one at that.
The movie begins with a sequence that depicts pilot Whip Whitaker doing the impossible, because of accepting the day’s flying job after a drunken, sleepless night he recovers from with a snort of coke, and it is fabulous. Whip’s actions are clearly shameful here, but Denzel Washington successfully threads the needle in selling us on a character of such questionable character. The argument that Whip’s experience and capability are enough to excuse taking such risks is difficult to deny, and once this goal is reached, the depiction of the plane crash is an absolute thrill ride. Zemeckis displayed his expertise at plane crashes for the first time in Cast Away, which, coincidentally, is another of his greatest films that includes a plot that stems from the same type of catastrophe.
Whip’s magnetism is born out of not just Washington’s great performance, but by Zemeckis’ detailed portrayal of the great number of small things that are carried out in this scene, and when Whip’s character is called into question, there is no doubt in the viewer’s mind that Whip is a hero. That aspect is absolutely essential, as the remainder of the film entails an utter drunkard fighting for his freedom with people who have no rational reasoning for doing so.
When Whip is made aware of the charges he faces after recovering from the crash, one would expect to see him immediately throw away all of his liquor, and while he does this initially, it doesn’t take long before he’s back to drinking himself into an early grave. Watching a character go down this self-destructive path can be quite frustrating to endure, and the ways Whip remains sympathetic throughout this honest depiction of alcoholism is worthy of high praise, due to Washington’s stellar work, and some great writing by John Gatins.
I’ve been giving Denzel a lot of credit here, and that’s because he deserves a great deal of it. His world-weary, charismatic persona we’re all familiar with is given the spotlight, as well as a commendable display of true acting chops that contains more than what is visible on the surface. Joaquin Phoenix still has my vote for winning the Oscar for the year’s best leading role, but if second place won an award, as it stands, it belongs to Denzel Washington.
The rest of the cast is rounded out by some more memorable faces, such as: John Goodman, Don Cheadle, Bruce Greenwood, Melissa Leo, and Kelly Reilly. John Goodman only has two brief appearances, but he makes a firm impression with his limited screen time. As a pharmaceutical savvy who provides Whip with his illegal substances, Harling Mays is an entertaining, unique character who injects a healthy portion of comic relief. Don Cheadle as Whip’s lawyer, and Bruce Greenwood as his company support, offer their always-great screen presences, and Melissa Leo does respectable work with her role as well. Kelly Reilly, who you most likely are familiar with for playing Watson’s bride in the Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes movies, has some good material playing Whip’s love interest, a fellow addict who teaches him some things about himself.
Flight will most likely be perceived as an actor’s movie come Oscar time, but while it features a whopping leading role from Denzel Washington, it should be viewed first and foremost as a character study dealing with alcoholism built on an original starting point. The places this film goes to and the ways it comes out functional are acts of wise filmmakers, and some scenes I don’t want to spoil you on are extremely good. One that would usually warrant a rejection of the main character is played humorously in its aftermath, and it is astonishing to see the way it comes together. Raw moments of drama are interlaced with writing symmetry that earns top honor for screenwriter John Gatins, and some unexpected twists that lead to the conclusion end this film on a beautiful note.
Flight won’t be the best movie of the year, but in a 12 month period that has offered very little in the way of ambitious, artistic dramas that truly work, it will be one of the better films to remember from 2012.
SCORE: 8/10
Source:
http://mikespsych.wordpress.com/2012/11/06/flight-review/