The problem with Robert Zemeckis alcohol redemption movie "Flight" is that if you are an alcoholic, it will have the dingaling of bullshit about it. There are as many different types of alcoholics as there are drunks, everybody drinks in their own way. But even given that wide a scope to choose from, there is no alcoholic remotely like Denzel Washington's diabolically name "Whip Whitaker".Captain Whip is drunk and high on coke when he flies 106 "souls" to Atlanta through and electrical storm and finally through an a complete shut down of the plane till it becomes a glider which he slows down by flying upside down and makes a landing which 10 out of 10 pilots would have crashed all aboard on a stimulator…. take a breathe.
Half an hour of awesomeness, especially the beginning where Denzel is nailing a girl young enough to be his daughter all night before lines of coke and Joe Cocker's"Feeling Alright" gets him to the airport on time. Yep, reminded me of my days (days? decades) tussling with the bottle. Win some lose more and by the end of the ride you better stop or you will lose more than a handful. Still, it was a fine idea at the time and despite divorce and a son who won't speak to him, Denzel's Whip is the epitome of cool and rides the first half hour in real style, the joys of spending your life blotto 101… memories are made of these.
So here is what you do, check out the first 45 minutes, maybe 50 minutes. After the crash -as epic a piece of filmmaking as you will ever see, John Goodman is EPIC as his coke supplier, entering to "Sympathy For The Devil", the local medicine man disgusted at the generic painkillers his killer Captain client is being forced to consume, and worth waiting around for a bit for and then… Kelly Reilly who is EPIC EPIC EPIC as his junkie love interest, until she goes straight. Actually, as junkies go she is such a drag she won't even suck a dick for a hit. But still she's gorgeous so give it till they have sex AND THEN LEAVE.
Because the rest of this is the pits.
Down and down Denzel spirals, in a rabbit hole of booze and drugs while he awaits a hearing about the cause of the accident.
How can a movie with so much potentially be so bad? A long boring trip into recovery. Really? We needed a two hour plus movie, four deaths and some great special effects so Whip can get sober? That isn't how alcoholism works. I don't believe it. If he had been on a bender to end all benders and then spent 24 hours with no alcohol, he would have broken the back of the addiction (for awhile, admittedly). And anybody, even Nicholas Cage in a HUGELY SUPERIOR movie about alcoholism, "Leaving Las Vegas" could not stay straight for a month if he had to.
Then the ending beggars the imagination. What sort of Hollywood claptrap is this? What planet do these characters live in.
Zemeckis hasn't done a great movie since "Forrest Gump", and this is just a hugely disappointing piece of work. As for Denzel… the difference between Whip the Pilot and Whip the whipped at the end should be stuck on every Johnny Walker Red bottle, drink heavily are you could end up this man.
Musically, nice to hear the Cowboy Junkies, but really "What's Going On" for the sex scene? really? Shouldn't that be "Let's Get It On". Some Stones as well plus "Under The bridge"?
Movie: C+
Music: B