Movie Review: Flight

Starring Denzel Washington, Adam Ciesielski, Brian Geraghty, Bruce Greenwood, Carter Cabassa and others
Star rating: ***

Denzel Washington, just the name makes us thinking of great movies like 'American Gangster' and gives the film instantly more stature and promise. When i saw the trailer for this film, i was expecting it to be just another aeroplane disaster movie and even though it seemed to be a cliche, i knew that i would nevertheless enjoy it because of Mr Washington. The film held promise and it seemed that it would deliver a great story with a strong message to the audience.

Captain 'Whip' Whitaker (Denzel Washington) is a highly experienced pilot who is also an alcoholic. Whitaker is having an serious affair with one of his air hostesses Katerina who is an enabler, hiding his addictions for him. Whip wakes up with a heavy hangover and tops it off with cocaine before heading off to his fly his plane with confidence. Arriving at the cockpit, he has an orange juice with alcohol and by an unfortunate quirk of fate, his plane runs into turbulence. Whip lands the plane and with six dead, the airline investigates the causes of the disaster.

Denzel Washington is fantastic as the morally challenged pilot who wants to stay true to himself and is struggling with his weaknesses as an substance addict. His acting is flawless and he takes the character on with gusto. As the story goes, it is a great storyline with some real messages behind the script. The problem is the pace. It does seem to drag on and you do find yourself losing interest after a while. More could have been done to flesh out Whip's relationship with fellow addict Nicole who he becomes friends with and ironically rescues when he can't rescue himself. The corporate nature of the world is true to form in this film and is fascinating to see how court rulings can be weighed up with evidence being disregarded due to technicalities.

A good watch but not one that got me hooked. Denzel Washington is brilliant as usual but the storyline was just too far extended that the ending just seemed to be an anti-climax.