The Higher Depths

Rating: 7/10 (15 February 2013)

This is an example of the Lesser Spotted Morally Ambiguous Screenplay in which we are solicited and even encouraged to feel sympathetic towards seriously flawed individuals whose flaws have already resulted in damage and/or death to others. A few years ago Kevin Bacon played a paedophile released from prison after serving his time and attempting to turn his life around. Here Denzel Washington plays a man who will surely wind up in prison as a result of taking the controls of an airliner knowing he was under the influence of both alcohol and cocaine. It is the fact that the plane gets into difficulties and must surely crash with none of the two hundred plus passengers and crew surviving - until Washington, still under the influence of both alcohol and cocaine, makes a miraculous landing resulting in only six deaths, that gives it the moral complexity. You could argue that this is luring an audience to a moral tract by sugar-coating it with some serious action in the first three reels but however you sidle up to the subject the film is attempting to explore serious issues and should be respected as such.