Scruples

Rating: Null/10 (26 February 2013)

I am not sure if the social board game "Scruples" which is based on ethical dilemmas is still as popular as it used to be. While this game is intended to test how well each player knows the other players, the situation facing the protagonist in "Flight" Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington) would be a very interesting challenge that can be used in the game.
Whitaker is an alcoholic and a darn good commercial airline pilot, and believe it or not, the two are not mutually exclusive. While my extremely modest knowledge of getting rid of hangovers stops at Alka Seltzer, apparently a sniff or two of coke does a far better job. That is what Whitaker relies on and it works every time in getting him through early morning short haul (less than an hour) flights. Not only that. In one of those flights when poor aircraft maintenance caused his plane to launch in an unstoppable nose dive, he saved the day with his superb skill, in a crash landing in an open field saving nearly a hundred lives on board and probably a lot more if the landing had not been steered away form an urban area. While there were still six deaths, he was hailed as a hero.
But the problem is that while the cause of the accident has been proved to have nothing to do with him and despite his heroic feat, he could be facing jail term if his alcoholism is unveiled by the inquest. To cut a long story short, to protect himself, he needs to lie and implicate a hostess who has died. It does not seem too difficult because her blood test for alcoholism is positive. But he knows that she didn't drink the stuff in the two empty bottles found on board. He did. Moreover, she was his lover.
ADDITIONAL SPOILER WARNING - The movie strongly suggests that Whitaker threw everything away in the last minute because this was the last straw on the camel's back – he had reached a point when he could not tell even one single more lie. But I can't help be reflect that if the deceased hostess that he had to betray was not his lover but someone he disliked, would he have still done the same. "Scruples" is not a simple game.
Watching Washington perform any role whatsoever is always a sheer joy, and some critics have considered "Flight" his best performance to-date, with which I can agree. And there are other good performances. As a drug addict that through a purely chance meeitng becomes his love object, and then drifts away, Kelly Reiller in her dreamy beauty brings together vulnerability and resilience convincingly. If you cannot recall immediately, the last time you saw her on screen could be as Doctor Watson's wife Mary. Bruce Greenwood, somewhat aged and lean, plays his good friend and unwavering support. Looking entirely professional and composed is Don Cheadle as his crafty but sincere-looking defense lawyer. John Goodman supplies his unique brand of comedy as his outlandish drug supplier. Justin Martin invokes pathos as the estranged teenage son with whom he finally finds reconciliation. Three very good support actresses are Nadine Velazquez, Tamara Tunie and Melissa Leo, playing respectively the alluring, lovely hostess who died in the accident, the role-model head hostess who helped him land the plane and the tough member of the inquest whose sharp questioning finally brings him to reveal the truth.