Robert Zemeckis (2012)
In Flight Denzel Washington is (a) Captain ‘Whip’ Whitaker, an airline pilot with a serious drink problem which he intermittently tries to beat, and (b) a star actor fighting against his dramatic destiny: having to admit ‘I am an alcoholic’ in the most eyecatching circumstances possible. Whip keeps failing to stay on the wagon and Washington has to bow to the inevitable but his fearless performance is his best yet. Washington dares not to be likeable – when a smart attorney calls Whip an arrogant scumbag it’s hard to disagree. (The attorney himself is no slouch when it comes to arrogance – in a different register: Don Cheadle complements Washington very effectively.) The film’s title can be interpreted literally and metaphorically: the actual flight in question is from Orlando, Florida to Atlanta, Georgia and Whip is the pilot in charge. After a heavy night of drink, drugs and sex, he wakes himself up with cocaine then steers the plane through severe turbulence shortly after take-off; problem solved, he helps himself to orange juice and vodka while his co-pilot Ken Evans (Brian Geraghty) takes over the controls and Whip takes a much-needed nap. He comes to as the plane, making its descent to Atlanta, goes into a steep dive. Whip rolls the plane upside down to arrest the dive, realises the engines are failing and will cut out before the plane reaches the airport runway, and manages to roll it back upwards before making a forced landing in a field. Thanks to his heroics, all but six of the 102 people on board survive; one of the fatalities, however, is the flight attendant (Nadine Velazquez) with whom Whip spent the previous night. Whip himself is hospitalised and a toxicology screening shows up the alcohol and narcotics in his system – enough for him to face criminal charges. The major part of the movie concerns Whip’s reactions to the aftermath of the flight and his relationship with Nicole (Kelly Reilly), a young woman whom he meets in hospital where she’s recovering from a heroin overdose.
During the climactic public hearing into the plane accident – it’s presided over by a chief investigator perfectly played by Melissa Leo – I thought for an amazing few moments that Whip was going to lie himself into personal and professional safety and that Flight might land in Crimes and Misdemeanors territory. But at the last moment he tells the truth and goes to jail. I experienced his doing the right thing as a disappointment; and the final prison sequence, and Whip’s meeting there with the teenage son from whom he’s estranged, is a serious anti-climax – the film goes soft and redemptive. John Gatins’s screenplay is structurally mechanical – for example, in the cross-cutting between what’s happening to Whip and what’s happening to Nicole immediately before they find themselves in the same hospital. It’s implausible that the press take so long to track Whip down (to his late father’s farm, where he chucks out a large stash of booze) and are then content to respect his privacy. Whip’s succumbing to alcohol temptation just before the hearing, although scarily staged, is thoroughly predictable and the reappearance at this point of his drug dealer Harling (John Goodman), who got him out of hospital earlier on, scarcely less so. (Harling brings Whip back to his senses with cocaine – in other words, he’s sharpened up for the hearing just the way he was before he took off from Orlando.) Nicole’s recovery from drug addiction is achieved with remarkable rapidity. But Gatins writes good, tangy dialogue – and for believably different voices.
Flight is highly entertaining – the first half hour especially will resonate for anyone who, entering the workplace, has to transform himself instantly into a public face, as well as for anyone who’s a nervous air passenger. Robert Zemeckis makes the in-the-air sequences highly involving and alarming and he has a strong cast: as well as Don Cheadle and Melissa Leo, Bruce Greenwood is excellent as an old buddy of Whip’s and representative of the airline pilots’ union, even if the character becomes obvious in the closing stages. Kelly Reilly is charming as Nicole. There’s a striking scene in a hospital stairwell where Whip and Nicole and a terminally ill cancer patient smoke and talk together although James Badge Dale is a bit too eager to make the most of his brief appearance as the dying man. But Flight is really all about Denzel Washington, whose characterisation is completely convincing. Whip is grieving and feels guilty about various things but whenever he’s challenged his instinct is to be aggressive – it sharpens his focus. His behaviour when he pays a call on his former wife and his son – embracing and, at the same time, almost fighting with the boy – is disturbing. Whip seems determined to make things worse and, in doing so, feel justified in going back to the bottle. And he knows best – you see it in his self-confidence as a pilot and in his defiantly folded arms at an AA meeting. Washington’s acting is majestically expressive, whether Whip is lying in his hospital bed or being grilled at the hearing. He’s equally good in extremis and in relatively quiet moments, like disposing of the contents of his numerous bottles and cans.
11 February 2013
