No, I know. But it didn't make any sense? Him actually going 9 days without a drink would have been far more interesting than the route they took. It was as if they realized the film was running too long and just skipped ahead.Originally Posted by erikdean
Oh, I agree. It was really odd to just skip that. But I think maybe they showed him drinking to much/throwing away his booze too many times already.
They could have at least had a montage of him shaking and bending over a toilet!
I loved throughout the whole movie there was constant moments where the bottles would be hidden and then revealed in shot, or there would be a close up of alcohol or something. I was just waiting for that refrigerator in the adjacent room to glow on screen and have the door dissolve away to assure us there is alcohol inside.
I'm with CocoActual Items
In the Year 2000
As more and more people start having sex with robots, it will become increasingly embarrassing to buy a can of WD-40.
Or start talking to him like in Requiem for a Dream.
I thought this was really mediocre. The music, the closeups of tears, the last scene with the son.... it was all so melodramatic.
Not good at all. I did enjoy the white-knuckle crash sequence, and John Goodman's final scene was hilarious and seemed to belong in a different movie. Where's my Denzel and Cheadle from Devil in a Blue Dress?
C+
This was pretty bad. It's a real shame because this plot would lend itself well to a good film, just not this one. I mean I cannot fault Denzel as he didn't have the greatest material to work with. The dialogue was at times so obvious. A good 45 minutes to an hour of the film is so repetitive, this is why the ellipse of Whip not drinking for 9 days is so glaringly obvious. The film spends so much time meandering through useless and repetitive plot points that it fails to capture some of the drama. It also was odd what scenes were shown and which scenes weren't. We wait till the second half of the film to see Whip's ex-wife and son, yet we meet Nicole very early on in the film. I just can't help but think it would have been more dramatic for us to meet Nicole in the hospital stairwell instead of being introduced earlier on.
I do also want to mention that Denzel here is good, but I wish the director and screenwriter were able to show us more of the depth of character the he brings. Also Bruce Greenwood is very good. Plus the construction of the crash sequence is very good and by far the best scene in the film.
Oh yeah, so I saw this last week. If it weren't for that embarrassing final five minutes, I'd probably be close to the middle on this one. I thought it was well paced and well acted, so definitely not a total disaster, but then there are the big problems that arise when the movie just turns into this unintentionally comical look at alcoholism. Like, Denzel's character is such a jerk and it's hilariously over-the-top when he just shows up at his ex-wife's house to randomly be an asshole. And then there's the whole thing in the hotel room near the movie's end. My audience ate that shit up, but it was unbelievably ridiculous. When Greenwood and Cheadle are knocking on his door, we know that a drunken Denzel is waiting on the other side, but I had no idea that Zemeckis would take it so far and include: empty bottles EVERYWHERE, a nearly naked Denzel passed out on the bathroom floor with a blood stain on the toilet, and... the mini bar fridge ripped off the wall!! Hahaha, that shit was one of the funniest scenes I've seen all year. It was just perfectly indicative of what the movie had become: this laughably preachy drinking-is-bad message screamed clumsily and loudly. The movie has other issues (Reilly's subplot is handled rather messily), but it all pales in comparison to the movie's third act.
But again, I think Denzel turns in a good performance, some of the dialogue was quite snappy, and Zemeckis still has some talent in his bones, but when I think of Flight, it's hard not to think of that final five minutes. And then I just want to laugh. Here's my full review:
FLIGHT
Like the character at their latest movie's core, Denzel Washington and Robert Zemeckis are veterans of their respective occupations. They're pros that know how to operate the big machinery of their creative positions and their experience affords them a comfortable confidence to get the job done safely. This level of skill is important to note because it helps keep their addiction drama Flight in the air for much of its running time, but it also backfires when it proves too tempting to take the easy route and coast through the narrative while flaunting an outdated bag of tricks. To say that the landing suffers as a result would be an understatement big enough to fly a plane through.
Washington is William "Whip" Whitaker, a deeply flawed pilot and full-time alcoholic who probably figures he can make up for his personal issues with that generously alliterative name of his. We meet him in a hotel room and watch as he kills his potential hangover with a line of cocaine less than two hours before his next flight. So we're already accustomed to the idea that Whip likes to fly planes when he's drunk and high, which we soon learn is something that Zemeckis and screenwriter John Gatins clearly disapprove of. But initially, Flight appears prepped to soar into morally murky territory when Whip takes a controversial approach to getting his plane through a momentary rough patch soon after liftoff. The co-pilot (Brian Geraghty) questions Whip's method, but even when addled by drugs and drink, Whip apparently has it all under control. It's an interesting setup because while it doesn't necessarily condone Whip's extracurricular activities, it certainly doesn't condemn them either.
So when a piece of plane hardware malfunctions, sending the plane into a nosedive and forcing Whip to take heroic action to salvage an almost certainly fatal situation, Flight embarks on a potentially complex journey. Whip lands the plane and saves almost everyone, but while the media praises him, a toxicology report revealing his blood alcohol level threatens to ruin his career and send him to jail. We know that Whip's inebriated state didn't contribute to the crash, but the very nature of the situation raises questions about ethical responsibility. The beginnings of a strong character arc and brave exploration of grim morality begin to materialize, but it's here that Flight abandons its ambitions and opts for a comically stilted gaze at alcoholism, a conflict suddenly reduced to a simplistically grunting message that suggests not drinking good, but any drinking at all bad.
Well, when any drinking at all leads to mowing down a stocked minibar or guzzling a bottle of vodka that's wider than Washington's head, yeah, I guess that's bad. But what happened to all that gray area we were promised? Flight literally spells out its commentary by making sure that none of the supposed "good" people in the cast ever have a drink in their hands, while Whip has one practically glued to his palm. Of course, Whip drinks enough for everyone, but it eventually gets ridiculous how huge a brush Zemeckis insists on using to paint the strokes of his preachy message about the evils of alcohol consumption. When Whip starts staring at a glass of vodka with a pained expression and soft, sad piano notes tinkle in the background, subtlety is officially swapped for clichéd familiarity. That sore spot you're feeling on your head is Zemeckis and Gatins bashing their message into your brain.
As Whip slips deeper down the rabbit hole of booze, Flight continues its descent by rolling out a cart of clichés that range from generic visual techniques to sappy stops along Whip's arc where he sits around and drunkenly watches old home movies. An awkwardly introduced subplot involving a junkie (Kelly Reilly) who strikes up a relationship with Whip just as she's beginning to seek help for her addiction issues is a dull distraction used mainly to make Whip's alcoholism look even more pathetic (you know you have a problem when the junkie sneers at you). Reilly does a fine job and she saves her scenes by elevating her performance beyond the reaches of the script, but it's still not enough to justify such a mechanically employed character.
Other supporting cast members also deliver solid work, especially Bruce Greenwood as a union rep and old pal of Whip who wants desperately to help his friend. Don Cheadle shows up as a hotshot lawyer on Whip's side and John Goodman plays a vulgar drug dealer who saunters into a few scenes for a bit of random comic relief. Gatins gives them all some crisp and occasionally funny dialogue to work with, so the script isn't a total bust after the intriguing first act. Zemeckis juggles the cast in a laidback manner and lets the movie unfold at a surprisingly quick pace that keeps it all in mostly entertaining territory for the bulky 138-minute running time. See what everyone can accomplish when they keep their hands off the bottle? Mediocrity! That's not entirely fair, of course, because the acting really is quite strong, especially considering how good Washington is in spite of his character's ridiculous arc, but Flight treats its themes and messages with such clunky clumsiness that it feels ripe for parody.
By trying to provide commentary on several subjects and eventually settling for a treacly treatise on the horrors of alcoholism, Zemeckis and Gatins spend way too much time on the blatantly obvious and seem to have only picked it as a focal point because it's the easiest way to activate some good ol' fashioned emotional manipulation. It's still fun to see Zemeckis back behind the camera of a live-action picture, his first since Cast Away in 2000, but the adventurous innovation he experienced in between with motion capture projects hasn't rubbed off on Flight.
Pedestrian Zemeckis may be worth a look, but while he can still pull off a big effects-driven suspense sequence like the plane crash set-piece here, he's far too eager to embrace gooey sentimentality in favour of meaningful drama. The final five minutes of Flight are ghastly, nearly shocking in their cloyingness. Actually, the whole third act is a bit of a laughable disaster. Following a decidedly different trajectory than its plot, this Flight actually lifts off quite smoothly, but pieces start falling off it throughout, turbulence throws it off course, and when it's finally time to land this beast, all Zemeckis can do is drive it straight into the ground with a big explosion of sap to mark the crash. He may be a pro, but sometimes when it matters most, he seems to be asleep at the controls.
B
c
I'm so confused, Scarmi!
You're giving it a B? Or a little c? Or some strange critical hybrid?
LOL, that is what happens when you're reading AD on your phone and you put it in your pocket. (I am not going to see this movie.)
Okay, hahaha, that makes more sense than the invention of a new letter grading system! And you're really not missing much by not seeing this, except for the hilarity of seeing what damage drunken Denzel can do to a hotel room all by himself.
I think I preferred the alternate ending to this film:
I'm with CocoActual Items
In the Year 2000
As more and more people start having sex with robots, it will become increasingly embarrassing to buy a can of WD-40.
I agree with most of the criticisms here, but for the most part got more out than most of you guys. Yeah, those final two scenes are kinda jaw-dropping in how phony and Afterschool-special they feel, but other than that I found it to be engrossing and well-crafted. I think people are underselling Zemeckis here a little - he's one of the few directors in Hollywood I think that really adds a little something to his projects, even though he's not exactly an auteur in the traditional sense. Washington is strong, though the Oscar-win talk seems a little premature.
But that ending, wow. The script for this isn't the best, but that ending feels like it was leftover from a really, really rough first draft. Yeesh.
Totally agree. I was surprised by how much his presence resonated even though it's not necessary per se (Outside of adding to the whole "act of God" motif that goes through the film).
"I shall immediately after I'm done watching Homeland." - DirkDiggler on his voting priorities
I thought it was a very compelling film with a few tonal issues (and yeah, the ending was very after-school special), but when it was on, it was really on. Washington would be an immensely deserving Best Actor winner. And I would love if Kelly Reilly were nominated for Supporting Actress. Her role was underwritten and her arc ends 2/3rds of the way through the movie, but I thought she was terrific, especially in her final scenes where she decides to leave Whip. I do think the script had a lot of flaws (I mean, were it not for James Badge Dale's intensity, the scene in the stairway at the hospital would have been ATROCIOUS), but Zemeckis directed the hell out of it. It's a B/B+ to me.
Oh, and I somehow totally forgot to mention the entire crash sequence, which is not only the highlight of the film and one of the best sequences I've seen in any movie this year, but probably one of the finest sequences Zemeckis has ever directed. It's a shame that the movie peaks so early, but considering how the crash is suppose to hover over the entirety of the rest of the film, it's somewhat fitting.
"I shall immediately after I'm done watching Homeland." - DirkDiggler on his voting priorities
I saw this with my family the day before Thanksgiving, and I feel like Melissa Leo's presence was God's early Christmas present to me. I had no idea she was in this, and I let out a little gay squeal when she started talking.
I thought it was well-made trash. The crash sequence is spectacular, but by the time Denzel is on his twelfth bender I was like, "ok, I get it." Denzel is great and very deserving of whatever accolades are coming his way. I'm trusting the writers branch to find something better to nominate. For what it's worth, the audience erupted in cheers when it was finished. I definitely didn't expect it to be such a crowd pleaser, especially as the whole cinema practically groaned in unison every time Denzel touched a bottle of booze.
Great. Now who's going to watch Sunday Rose on SAG night??
Melissa Leo in that red Ann Taylor Loft suite made this movie bearable. She needed more screen time.
Last edited by Moviefreak; 11-23-2012 at 05:51 PM.
I'm going to personally manage her FYC campaign for this film. She will probably join me.
Great. Now who's going to watch Sunday Rose on SAG night??
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
