Flight decides to take this to the extreme and present us with a protagonist that is so flawed, sometimes it is hard to see when he is actually going to pull through and show us the light at the end of the very long tunnel.
Flight is a film of two halves. It starts off presenting us with a very flawed protagonist, Whip Whitikar (Denzel Washington) a flight captain who likes to smoke, drink and take drugs in excess. He is also having an affair with one of the flight crew, Katerina Marquez (Nadine Velaquez) right under the nose of his good friend, flight crew member Margaret Thomason (Tamara Tunie). On a routine flight, Whip is roughly awoken from his nap when the auto pilot controls on the plane fail. What follows is an extremely tense emergency landing where the quick thinking (while intoxicated) from Whip helps save the lives of the majority of people on board. However, the second half of the film follows Whip as he is accused of being intoxicated while flying and putting everyone on board the plane in danger, despite the fact that he saved many people's lives. He is joined by lawyer Hugh Lang (Don Cheadle) and Harling Mays (John Goodman) who try and help prove that Whip was innocent against all odds. However, when Whip meets a fellow recovering addict, Nicole (Kelly Reilly) it makes him see some home truths and second guess himself - does he really want to get away with everything that he has done?
The advertising for Flight has really heavily relied on promoting the thrilling plane crash at the beginning of the film. While this is a brilliantly tense set piece in the film, it really is only half of the story. Unfortunately for the film, it's certainly the most exciting half of the film too. If you've seen the trailers, then you will have pretty much seen how Whip manages to crash land the plane. The fact that you know the plane is going to crash just makes the build up to it even more tense. However, Director Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future, Polar Express) doesn't simply rely on this audience expectation as he continues to ramp up the tension in the flight itself. First, there's Whip addressing the cabin full of passengers while he sneakily pours himself a double vodka into his orange juice out of sight, then there's a good old storm which provides a tense take-off and when Whip falls asleep as the plane is on auto-pilot, it's just another nail in the coffin for our protagonist. How will he ever get through the court case scott free?!
The following court case after the crash landing is by no means boring, but it's a massive shift in narrative for the film, going from a traditional action film territory (think the old Airport films) to a drama piece. Writer, John Gatins, takes the focus away from the dramas of the court room and the victims of the plane crash (which could have been very interesting) and instead decides to focus completely on Whip battling his inner demons and trying to nurse a damaged Nicole back to glory at the same time (or, is it her that is trying to nurse him back to health?) It's makes for an interesting drama piece, but I can't help but think that an interweaving narrative between Whip and the courtroom dramas of the victims families could have made the second half of the film as thrilling as the first half.
The fact that Flight is essentially a drama piece means that the characters needed to be spot on. For the most part, it does get it right. Washington, who plays Whip was given a very difficult character to play, for Whip is a man who challenges the audience to keep rooting for him because he does nothing in the film to help himself. He's a needy character, someone who thinks he can look after himself and help others as well, but actually is completely dependent on all those around him. When he is pouring himself a double vodka on the plane it's kind of funny, then when he continues to drink later in the film it becomes annoying, then when he decides to get complete smashed before the integral court case which could prove him innocent or guilty, it's confusing and annoying - at that part in the film I was asking myself whether Whip was still the protagonist or the antagonist. I suppose it's what makes the film interesting, given that the protagonist blurs the lines so much between good and bad, but sometimes the film just pushes the boundaries a little too far. Also, sometimes Washington came across as a little cartoony in his portrayal of being addicted to alcohol - I'm not sure that he needed to drink from a massive bottle of vodka to prove to us that he was an alcoholic.
However, on the other side of the spectrum, Nicole was portrayed just right as the damaged drug addict who is desperate to get away from her old life. We see how desperate she is at the beginning (going to a friend in the porn industry for more drugs) but it's when she meets Whip when she takes a turn for the better and ends up leaving her old life behind her for good (is she the true protagonist in the film?!) The only thing that the film felt like it was missing was a true antagonist for the characters and the audience to fear. While it was hinted at that Ellen Block (Melissa Leo), the lead NTSB investigator was someone who wanted to pin all he blame on Whip, she only appears in the court room scenes right at the end of the film so her character is never properly fleshed out into a true villain. Again, I hate to keep banging on about it, but more scenes with the victims families and Ellen Block could have solved this problem.
So, while Flight isn't a complete plane crash of a film, it certainly could have done with a few improvements to help balance out the two halves of the film. After the first thrilling half of the film, it just felt like the second half dragged a little bit.
**½ / *****
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