Ugly

Rating: 4/10 (2 February 2014)

Whip is the greatest pilot the universe has ever seen. He's also an alcoholic and a junkie. He's divorced and estranged from his ex and his son. He has a relationship with a flight attendant. One day he has a flight from Orlando to Atlanta with a rookie flight officer. He pulls a dangerous maneuver to get the plane out of heavy turbulence. Later he drinks some more vodka from the trays. Suddenly the elevator gets stuck driving the plane into an uncontrollable descent. Whip decides to flip the plane to regain some control and crash lands it in an empty field saving almost everyone on board. Among the dead, his flight attendant.
He ends up relatively unharmed in the hospital. His union representative offers all the support, some goofy NTSB show up for a preliminary interview. First thing he does is call his pusher to supply him with all sorts of goodies. During a smoke break at the hospital stairwell he meets a junkie girl. We've also seen her before, she's down and out on her luck.
Whip leaves the hospital to the family farm, gets rid of all the drugs and booze, visits the girl and takes her with him. The union gets him a lawyer that manages to suppress the toxicology report that shows that he was on alcohol and cocaine the day of the flight. He start drinking again. The girl tries to help to no avail. The union tries to help, to no avail. He starts manipulating the surviving crew to testify that he was alright that day. The day approaches when he will testify under oath in front of the NTSB. Will he straighten out or lose it?
Flight has a very compelling aircraft crash scene and interesting insights by a terminally ill cancer patient, but it has a lot of uncompelling, pointless scenes, too. And lots of loud obnoxious music. Knowing what we know about Whip, it's impossible to root for this guy in any way. Which leaves you without a character to care for. And frankly this movie features mostly ugliness, drug addiction, and lies. It makes pilots, the airline industry, and the pilot unions look terrible. Performances by secondary characters are particularly strong- Bruce Greenwood, Peter Gerety, James Badge Dale standout, as well as Nadine Velazquez's body. I guess, if addiction is your thing, Flight might be worth looking into. Near the end it finally gives you some meaningful lines. Otherwise, don't be fooled by the cast or the semi-interesting premise, Flight is mostly empty and ugly.