Flight

Rating: 10/10 (12 January 2013)

One word reaction: wow. I'm not gonna lie, I went into the theater with high expectations. I had read Ebert's review in which he said it was, "nearly flawless," and I went in expecting a film perhaps not nearly flawless, but excellent nevertheless. I gotta say, Ebert was right. Flight is nearly flawless. It's the best film directed by Robert Zemeckis ever, and the best film to chronicle addiction since Leaving Las Vegas all the way back in 1995, which was my choice for Best Picture that year. It wasn't nominated.
Over the years, I've had a lot of beef with Oscar. I'd say they really started to get on my nerves with their 1979 selection of Kramer vs. Kramer over Apocalypse Now. Most movie buffs recognize Apocalypse Now as one of the greatest films of all time. That's because it is. Two years later we have the same mistake, perhaps an even worse mistake. Chariots of Fire was picked over Raiders of the Lost Ark. The average person does not even remember what the hell Chariots of Fire was, and that's because it wasn't memorable. Many more mistakes were made throughout the 80's and 90's, but touching on those would take forever. In recent years, there have also been a few critical mistakes such as The King's Speech over The Fighter, The Artist over The Descendants, and so on.
Anyway, this is a review for a movie, not a bashing of Oscar, although after getting started, I think I WOULD like to devote a paragraph or ten to ripping those Academy basterds apart limb by limb. But that is a venture for another day. For now, I'd like to touch on some key elements of Flight that made it the excellent film it is.
First of all, we have Washington's performance. Denzel Washington is, in my opinion, one of the greatest living actors, and he shows his best in Flight. If he doesn't win Best Actor this year, Oscar needs a probe shoved up its ass. There I go again. Damn. But, to be serious, Denzel blew me away. His performance is FLAWLESS.
And now I ask you- the reader, what goes along well with a flawless performance. I'll answer that. A great movie, and, ladies and gentlemen, what we have here is a stunning accomplishment in cinema. The story begins with the most heart wrenching and surreal depiction of a plane crash ever caught on film. It is a long seen, but it is not PROLONGED. Ask Goldilocks. It's just right.
Now, you can whine about the idea that Flight leveled out and never reached the intensity it had to start with. Notice how I said "idea." That is because the "you" in my sentence would be wrong. Flight never allowed me to take a breath. Hell, I had to whiz like a race horse for the last hour and a half, but brain never acknowledged the signals my body was sending. It was too immersed in something beautiful. Flight is truly something to marvel. Denzel Washington is a hero here, not because his character in the movie landed a plane and was called a hero, but because this performance was a true act of heroism. Bravo.