Flight

I was curious as to why Flight was falling so quickly on the weekly charts, so I went to see it this week. It was number five this past weekend, but only gross just over $8 million. It’s domestic gross up to this point is about $65 million. Overall, this is not bad, but I expected better from a Denzel Washington movie.

The trailer for the film looked so good and I was really excited to see it. However, very quickly into the movie, I realized the trailer was misleading. I believed the story was the government investigation into a plane crash. While the story is driven by the plane crash, it has very little to do with that. This post will contain Spoilers.

Flight is about different types of addiction, from drugs to alcohol. Captain Whip Whitaker (Washington) is an alcoholic pilot. The plot is mainly his struggles with alcoholism and covering it up through the investigation. Whip comes in contact with many people who try to help him with his problems: his union representative (Bruce Greenwood), lawyer (Don Cheadle), and most importantly, recovering heroin addict Nicole (Kelly Reilly). 

I found the film really uncomfortable to watch. I am squeamish watching drug use in films, but the directing style made this one especially hard to watch. My guess is that Robert Zemeckis did this on purpose but it made the film unbearable at parts. I was turning away from the screen at some pivotal scenes.

Furthermore, I did not like Whip. This is the first time I watched a movie with Denzel where I did not like his character. I even like him in American Gangster. In the opening scene, he fights with his ex-wife about paying for their son’s private school. He was immediately dislikeable and pathetic. Denzel played the character perfectly, but I hated the character. That always makes it harder to get through a movie.

I would not suggest this movie. I don’t read movie reviews before I go because I like to go with an open mind. Therefore, I was not expecting Flight to be this hard to watch. This movie left a lot to be desired. I was thoroughly disappointed.