Flight

Rating: 7/10 (5 February 2013)

Welcome back Robert Zemeckis after his actor-animation capture ventures, FLIGHT heralds his first time return to a real live feature after a dozen years. Great relief he is still excelling in instructing a debatable moral tale with a back-to-his-top-form two-times Oscar-winner Denzel Washington.
The narration has its gradual and clock-wise temp in scrutinizing a heroic pilot's personal quagmire after landing a doomed-to-be-crashed plane with minimum casualty by virtue of his alcoholic addiction (what's worse is the fact that he was cockeyed even when he was at the helm during that dreadful accident). From a legitimate angle, although his valorous action deserves raves from the mass, and the pivotal cause of the accident largely lies in an outdated plane part, he still unavoidably should assume his liability. There is no ambiguity in whether or not he should get away with it, and eventually the case evolves into a self- awakening resolution to reshuffle one's life from his damned addiction (there is a more-than- enough trek leading into the thematic revelation, thanks to Washington's instinctive charisma, if falls into other thespian's palm, which would induce an over-dramatic and self-conscious bravura just to appease the good-over-evil expectation from well-prepared audience. The final twist is histrionic but Danzel's telling confession is superbly visceral even though has been fermented overlong.
The Kelly Reilly tributary also negotiates through an engrossing damsel in mistress plight, until it emerges (a shade bluntly) with the main narrative, prompts the salvation-evoking meeting between a compulsive and recurrent drunkard and an inveterate junkie, it is not a fatalist love story of LEAVING LAS VEGAS (1995, 8/10) although neither of them is another's messiah. Ms. Reilly, a rather under-used British actress, after many years of endeavor in Hollywood, finally grabs a much meatier role in a mainstream flick and she is never daunted by Washington's suffocating presence, infuses a secular savor tallies with the formatively square film.
Robert Zemeckis shoots the most matter-of-fact airplane crashing process except the final collision, when CGI unavoidably reveals its tail, but the film stands unyieldingly on its ground as a preachifying morale parable, its motley spectators will never feel being offensive when it tries too much and many cliché settings keep hopping up, anyhow it is a laudable feat from Zemeckis, whom I feel spontaneously send my tip of advice (definitely I'm not a loner here), stopping meddling with the pricey animation gizmos and going back to the fertile soil where germinates FORREST GUMP (1994, 9/10)