Tale of a Captain Sully with a drinking problem nosedives after sensational crash scene opening

Rating: 5/10 (25 November 2012)

'Flight', Robert Zemeckis' first live-action film in twelve years, starts off with one of the most spine-tingling, harrowing plane crash disaster scenes in cinematic history. Denzel Washington as the plane's alcoholic pilot, Captain William "Whip" Whittaker, crash lands his jet into a field after a broken jack screw causes a catastrophic loss of control. Loosely based on a fatal Air Alaska crash in 2000, Whip successfully saves 96 out of 102 lives, by inverting the aircraft, right before it goes down.
Whip winds up in the hospital and soon recovers from minor injuries. Despite being hailed as a hero (a la the real-life Captain "Sully" Sullenberger), Whip was drunk during the flight and the National Transportation Safety Board now has a toxicology test taken when he first arrives at the hospital, that proves it. Fortunately for him, his tough as nails attorney, Hugh Lang (played by Don Cheadle), is able to quash the report due to irregularities in the blood test.
While the aforementioned plane crash is riveting, the bulk of 'Flight' is unfortunately just another tale of a sad sack alcoholic wrestling with his demons. Some may be impressed by the ambiguity of a man who can be both a hero and an angry, aggressive, self-destructive alcoholic at the same time--but most of 'Flight' is a story we've seen before.
While in the hospital, Whip meets Nicole who is recovering from a heroin overdose. Earlier, we see Nicole before she meets Whip and it's quite clear that her addiction is extensive. It seems rather odd that Whip would take Nicole under his wings at this juncture especially with the possibility of extensive media scrutiny, but he decides anyway to bring her back to his (now) deceased father's farm (why it takes the media a few days before they actually go out and confront Whip at the farm, doesn't ring true at all).
Nicole is there to contrast her quick transcendence over her addiction as opposed to Whip's continuing denial (it seems awfully convenient that such a severe addict as Nicole, is able to see the light, so quickly!). Still, Denzel Washington does a fine job in conveying just how hard it is to deal with someone who is an alcoholic (some of the best later scenes are Whip's confrontations with Nicole).
The rest of 'Flight' chronicles Whips' continuing downward spiral. There is Whip's visit to his ex-wife and son which ends quite badly and Charlie Anderson (the union rep) along with his attorney's attempt to sober him up before the big NTSB hearing. That whole scene is perhaps the least convincing in the film. You'll recall that Whip is placed in a hotel room where he has no access to alcohol. Even though they hire a bodyguard to watch the room, they don't bother to check to see if the adjoining room is stocked with alcohol. Furthermore, why would the door to the adjoining room be unlocked?--unless you've paid for the other room, a hotel would not leave such a door open.
In the end, Zemeckis must opt for the 'Hollywood' ending. At the crucial moment, Whip suddenly has a change of heart, and admits 'everything' at the NTSB hearing. In this case, he won't let the flight attendant he was sleeping with before the ill-fated flight, be blamed for 'drinking while on duty' (Whip won't impugn her reputation since she was responsible for saving a child during the crash). Is this enough for a man so in denial as Whip is, to suddenly 'come clean'? Unlikely. It would have been a lot more troubling if Zemeckis showed Whip staying in denial and is cleared at the hearing--but Zemeckis needs a feel good ending. Whip does go to prison afterward but is on his way to reconciliation with his son (who visits him in prison) and presumably with the ex-wife. There's also a rather obvious moral tale here--Whip articulates it when he states at the film's conclusion that he finally feels 'free' in prison, as he is no longer hitting the bottle.
Despite a pretty positive critical reception, there were a number of critics who refused to jump on the bandwagon--recognizing that the story surrounding Denzel's performance, in the words of LA Times critic Kenneth Turan, "is not as subtle or involving as his performance." Turan feels that 'Flight" "plays at times like a feature-length infomercial for the powers of AA." David Fear agrees: "Take out the opening jaw-dropper, and you've essentially got The Lost Weekend Redux. Despite Washington going the full nine yards ugly-drunk-wise, there's little to distinguish this from every other entry in the cinema du addiction genre: You'll get the requisite denial, hitting rock bottom and then rockier bottom, relapse and, finally, a moment of clarity."
Stan Hall in the Portland Oregonian feels that Zemeckis' "best-known work has a tendency to go for grand gestures, old-fashioned moralizing and outcomes that can often be spotted from miles away." And he finds that, "there's not much real value to this oddly slick stab at popcorn entertainment about a person's debilitating alcoholism." Andrew O'Hehir in Salon concurs that Zemeckis is a "technical wizard" but "drama just isn't his instrument": "Slowly but surely, "Flight" degenerates from a tale of moral paradox and wounded romance into a mid-1990s after-school special about addiction and recovery. You get the feeling the filmmakers are aiming for a star-driven combo of the Sully saga and "Crime and Punishment."
I quote these critics to point out that I'm not the only one who has reservations about this film. I think most of us will agree that the plane crash scene and Denzel's excellent performance are the highlights of the film. I'm not sure how many will agree with me and these other discerning critics, that Flight's narrative is nothing special, with its pedestrian emphasis on one man's quest to purge his alcoholic demons and the obvious exhortation to embrace sobriety.