Film Review | Flight

There are two things that remain constants throughout Flight - a leaner, meatier Oscar contender than its somewhat flabby, three-hour counterparts.

One: it stars Denzel Washington. It stars Denzel Washington very much. It very much stars Denzel Washington, and he scored another Oscar nomination for starring the stuffing out of this film.

Two: it's directed by Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future, Forrest Gump, Polar Express), and it's meant to be his return to 'adult fare'.

The latter is made clear to us from the opening sequence: blurry, exposed breasts come into focus to reveal the statuesque naked body of Katerina Marquez (Nadine Velasquez) as she faces the cold light of day in a hotel bedroom after what appears to have been a heavy night.

As she dresses - taking her sweet, sweet time - the camera pans to the messy bed where Whip Whitaker (Washington) is lying prostrate, hungover - and slightly on chubby side. His pick-me-up? A quick line of cocaine, zapped into the nose as we discover - to our horror, and contrary to cliché - that Katerina is not a prostitute, but a co-worker: she's a stewardess, Whip is her pilot, and they're scheduled to fly in a couple of hours.

Is Whip fit to fly? Even a nervous, wet-behind-the-ears co-pilot (Brian Geraghty) suspects that he may not be up to scratch. But thankfully for most of the people on board though, after disaster strikes, Whip performs a daring manoeuvre (to wit: flipping the plane upside-down), suggesting that being stoned might in fact have endowed him with a near-superhuman genius.   

Saving 96 lives (or 'souls') out of the 102 on board, Whip is hailed as a hero.  But before long, a toxicology report unearths the truth about his physical state on that fateful day.

Will Whip be able to sail through this one unscathed, even with the help of his union rep (Bruce Greenwood) and an intrepid, seemingly fool-proof lawyer (Don Cheadle)?

Despite its high-powered, high-concept premise, the real meat has little to do with plane engine malfunction, or tense legal wrangling (most of which happens off-screen, and largely courtesy of Cheadle's magic touch). The film bounces an extra mile beyond its expected trajectory when you discover that, far from fishing for cheap thrills, Zemeckis genuinely wants to explore the destructive effects of alcohol addiction.

Befriending a lost-soul photographer-cum-prostitute-cum-crack addict Nicole (Kelly Reilly) while recovering from the incident in hospital, Whip retreats into his grandfather's country house, where we discover just what an shambling, slovenly creature he is. His addiction, now running the risk of costing him his career, has also wrecked his marriage and caused irreparable damage to the relationship he may have had with his only son.

And dear, dependable Denzel predictably belts out yet another 'bold', 'gripping' performance. As these things generally go, he's at his best when Whip is at his weakest. A scene in which he proposes a romantic getaway to Nicole - whom he has allowed into his home - only to haul insults at her after she suggests he eases up on the booze is one of those pathetic but riveting turns that tend to easily alchemise into Oscar gold.

The problem is that despite the irresistible premise, Zemeckis is content to coast on Denzel's skills, shoving secondary characters to the side - most clumsily, Nicole herself - and allowing Whip's misery-memoir fodder to eclipse what would otherwise have been an air-tight thriller. Had his character not been so brash (almost cartoony) you would hardly notice that John Goodman is in this film, for example - playing Whip's gleefully amoral drug supplier Harling.

Flight's heart is definitely in the right place: Zemeckis and screenwriter John Gatnis judiciously place the dramatic onus on the pitfalls of addiction, bolstering their project with Christian motifs and allusions which would have been heavy-handed in a more fanciful film. But with a meat-and-potatoes drama of this kind, carefully spliced-in references to the celestial are more than welcome.

Any kinks and twists and more than welcome.

Because by the time the end credits roll - set to yet another too-obvious soundtrack choice - you will have witnessed a story of redemption that defaults to formula mere minutes after its spectacularly bumpy early climax.