See you all on the dark side of the moon

Rating: 8/10 (24 October 2015)

Robert Zemeckis reminds me of Steven Spielberg - a gifted visual storyteller who is usually better at more lighthearted fare (in his case, Back to the Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) than at darker stuff. Flight, however, is Zemeckis' best serious movie, a sharp drama anchored by a magnificent performance by Denzel Washington.
Washington plays Whip Whitaker, veteran pilot whose plane malfunctions during a flight (a tense set-piece which Zemeckis handles superbly). Whip pulls off an impossible maneuver and manages to land saving almost everyone on board; when he awakens in a hospital, he is hailed as a hero. Trouble is, Whip is an alcoholic - he was piloting drunk and high on cocaine. While he was unconscious, blood samples were taken from him, toxicology tests performed; Whip realizes he may go from saviour to culprit of the disaster.
I've never seen Washington give a weak performance; this is among his best ones. Whip is a thorny character, a man capable of decency and empathy, but also weak and self-destructive. If the first act of the movie is about Whip's plane crashing, what follows is about Whip's LIFE crashing and burning as well.
Although the incident is the flashier scene, a few quieter moments are even better, such as when, at the funeral of a crew member, Whip emotionally blackmails a surviving hostess into keeping quiet about his addiction ("Imagine your son at this same church looking at you in that box"). As far as Hollywood protagonists go, Whip is a rather unsavory type.
The stellar supporting cast includes John Goodman, Bruce Greenwood and Don Cheadle - three actors who are always good - and Kelly Reilly as a drug addict who bonds with Whip; Reilly is fine in the tricky role but her subplot feels truncated and narratively unbalanced.
Although the ending isn't as clichéd as it could have been, I feel Flight screamed for a darker conclusion - one tragic in the classical sense, where the protagonist is destroyed by his fatal flaw. Still, this is a powerful character study, both Zemeckis' and Washington's best work in years.
7,5/10