Flight advertises itself as a film about the mysteries as to why a plane crashed. From that perspective, I feel the film cheats. If anything I feel that actually, the film goes out of its way to make the flight almost insignificant which is a shame because that’s by far the best bit! I digress – onwards!
Released: 2012
Runtime: 2hrs 18 mins
The Premise
A pilot who performs an utter miracle of saving a plane from certain doom wrestles with himself over the reasons why he landed it.
The Disasters Faced
A Plane crash, death by rolling around a plane, drink and drug addiction and religious symbolism carved into everything you see.
The Execution
Flight introduces you to a man (Denzel Washington) who jumps from drink to drugs to sex and back again in about thirty seconds. He is not likeable and is frankly a vile man in my book. However, when the plane he’s flying malfunctions it’s purely the fact he’s drunk and high on cocaine that he lands the thing in what is an amazing sequence. However, everyone knows the state he was and always is in. Do they tell that he puts everyone in jeopardy every day or do they let him off because of the miracle he performed? The same for Denzel himself. Is the crash enough to pull him out of his lifelong stooper? It’s here where the film wallows for the rest of its duration to its inevitable conclusion.
The Effects
The plane crash itself is frankly stunning. The effects and the set compliment everything and the fact everyone is tipped upside down is a great stunt.
Why It’s Worth Watching
Aside from the excellent crash sequence, Washington does make a good performance of being utterly drunk for the entire film. Don Cheadle is underused but does well with what he’s got, as does Kelly Reilly whose character may be ineffective in the overall story but is actually far more interesting to me than our main man. The film is slightly over-long and the climax of it all actually feels a little bit rushed, given the whole steps we had to take to get there.
Drinking Game
Your drinking game can be whenever Denzel drinks but if you’d like a liver still after 2 hours, go for each time you spot some none too subtle Christian symbolism.
Best Character
Kelly Reilly as Nicole was far more interesting as her arc showed the lowest and highs. When she exits the film it feels a shade worse for doing so.
Weirdest Moment
The Christian symbolism. The plane crashes on a Pentecostal site. Everyone keeps saying Oh God or Jesus! Then in a jarring and bizarre scene, the co-pilots wife starts charting Praise Jesus. It’s so jarring its comical and it absolutely ruins that substory and its integrity.
Random Trivia
Apparently, there is superstition for flight numbers that add up 11 being unlucky, so the flight number is 227 to play on this. Also, its the first live-action film for director Robert Zemeckis since Cast Away – I think he likes planes. Crashing.
Conclusion
An interesting film about the human faults and what provokes change. It also teaches that everyone has the power to change their ways it’s just finding what can trigger the change that can be the problem. Flight sadly doesn’t quite achieve it all it sets out for and actually makes it feel more like the message is Even Arseholes Make Miracles.
I Love Disaster Movies! 
Agreed with all of these points, but perhaps I was too entrapped within Denzel……’s performance, that I overlooked it’s baggy middle and poor pacing.